


Ashes Rise

by matrixlog



Category: The Walking Dead (TV)
Genre: Abuse, Anxiety, Eventual Negan/OC, F/M, Hate to Love, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Negan Being Negan (Walking Dead), No Rick and Co, Panic Attacks, Passively Suicidal, Prostitution, Revenge, Self-Harm, Sex Trafficking, Slow Burn, Suicidal Thoughts, Swearing, Well more like hate to dislike to tolerate to love, injuries
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-01-19
Updated: 2019-10-07
Packaged: 2019-10-12 20:05:48
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 22
Words: 60,036
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17474141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/matrixlog/pseuds/matrixlog
Summary: The setting can change, but that was about it.Ash didn't trust people, and more than anything, she didn't trust men. Men had been the root of her anguish since the world turned to hell, and men had left burn and incision scars on a large portion of her body. Men had branded her like cattle.When Negan brought her back to the Sanctuary, Ash thought her solitary life was about to go to hell in a hand basket. She thought she'd be back with Z, one of the most devious men she'd ever met - the kind that didn't disguise his version of a "new world order" and what it meant for women.When Ash is attacked on a run with Negan and his Saviors, her carefully constructed walls are shattered, and she can't shake the anxiety that's taken hold in her chest and won't let go. Negan, though, has questions, and he won't let them go.---A story of revenge, learning to trust and forgive, healing, secrets and family.





	1. Dear Leader

**Author's Note:**

> A note about the AU this is set in: There is no Rick. There is no Alexandria. This work takes place in a setting where Negan still runs the Sanctuary, but Rick and Co. just full on don't exist. There's also no wives. Negan's still a womanizer who sleeps around, but he's not keeping the wives around.
> 
> (Also, edit after the fact: I'm a dumbass and somehow named my Ezekiel the same after King Ezekiel because, again, I'm a dumbass. So he's now to be referred to as Z. Sorry for any confusion.)

Her heart thundered in her chest, blood pumping at a rate that had to be an all-time high through her veins. She could feel her heart in the palms of her hands, in her fingers that gripped the daggers in her fingerless-gloved hands.

  
Her back was against the wall on the other side of the door, waiting for the geek to amble through the doorway, seeking her flesh. The woman’s teeth were clenched, lips pulled back in a snarl as she waited, ears pricking at every singe noise.

  
In the stock room, behind her, she heard something smash into the shelves of the pharmacy, followed by a long groan. From her hiding point, she couldn’t see what had happened, and she couldn’t tell if a geek had smacked into a shelf or if she wasn’t alone.

  
Something clicked, and a beam of light darted into the dark room she was waiting in, and she drew away, back brushing over the wall as she leaned away, careful not to move her booted-feet and make more noise.

  
_Footsteps._

  
By the steady, precise sound of them, it appeared someone was walking towards her – someone living.

  
Her blood ran cold, her heart stuttering in her chest. The pain coming from this made her chest clench, so bad that her eyes began to water as she bit into her cheek, a poor attempt to distract herself from the pain.

  
Blinking away the tears, she continued to wait, and she didn’t have to wait long before a male body entered, shining a flashlight to the right.

  
That was her opportunity, and she pounced, pushing her entire, meager bodyweight against the man, slashing down across the back of the hand holding a gun. She didn’t have time to process what the gun was, but she knew in a fight, that gun had a better chance than her knives.

  
“Shit!” the man shouted as he hit the ground, his breath hitting the woman in the face. She was on top of him, one blade against his throat, the other at the ready, as she straddled him.  
As she raised her arm, ready to drive the point of the dagger through his eye, someone grabbed her bicep, yanking her backwards and tossing her without effort.

  
She smacked into the pharmacy counter, and spots bloomed in front of her eyes, obscuring the majority of her vision as her head swum. Whoever this guy was with, he had buddies, and they weren’t going to let him die.

  
“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” a new, male voice whistled above her, and she blinked hard, clearing her vision. "Pissin' your pants yet?"

  
The man balanced a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire on his shoulder, a hunting knife holstered at his hip. His jeans were neat, cuffed at the ankle, and as her eyes traveled up, she found him wearing a white shirt that practically glowed in the dim store with an unzipped, leather moto jacket. A red scarf was wrapped around his throat.

  
His features reminded her of a wolf, all devilish grins and cold eyes. Yeah, he was handsome, but the way he leered at her and no light reached his eyes made her tighten her grip on the daggers. His salt and pepper hair was slicked back with gel, and he had trimmed scruff for facial hair.

  
“You think you can just attack one of my men for no damn reason?” he continued to ask of her, but his voice was drowned out by the thrumming of her blood in her ears.

  
As she continued to stare, his facial expression changed. He went from grinning at her, happy in the sense that he found his prey, to frowning, his brows tugged down in the center of his forehead. He swung the bat off his shoulder, bringing it to a sudden stop in front of her right cheek.

  
“Speak when you’re fucking spoken to,” he growled. “ _Why_ did you attack one of my men? Try to kill him?”

  
“Th-thought he w-was th-the geek,” she squeaked, staring at the spikes on the barbed wire hardly an inch from her eye. Dried bits of what looked like blood clung to the metal. “D-didn’t w-w-wan-want t-to die.”

  
The man smirked, pulling the bat away from her face, and she visibly relaxed, the tension seeping out of her shoulders, and she slumped against the counter, sliding further into the floor.

  
“See? It’s not so hard to answer a few questions,” he crooned in false praise. “Now, Simon here is gonna pat you down, take away those pretty, little knives of yours, and then I want half of your supplies.”

  
The woman – hell, she was barely a woman, more of a girl holding two daggers with jewels inlaid, someone’s family heirloom – shook her head, sucking the corner of her bottom lip in between her teeth and biting down.

  
Above her, the man with the bat laughed. A massive, booming sound. Around her, a handful of other laughs rose up. Looking into the dim, she found herself surrounded by heavily - armed men. Men. So many men. 

  
“Here’s the fucking thing, sweetheart,” he ordered, his laughter dying in an instant. “You don’t _fucking_ say no to me. Now, where the _fuck_ is your camp?”

  
Again, she shook her head, sucking down a shaking breath before she sat up, knees to her chest, but she still held the daggers, her grip so intense her hands might as well have been super glued to the handles.

  
“C-can’t,” she stammered.

  
“The fuck do you mean?” the man roared, bringing his left hand to the handle of his bat, and, out of fear, the girl dropped one knife to hold up a hand, silently pleading with him to wait. How could he be so loud in an unsecured area?

  
“I don’t – I don’t h-have one,” she tried to explain, already knowing this wasn’t enough of an answer. “I-I keep mo-moving e-every night.”

  
The man studied her face for a moment: her eyes were sunken into her skull, and dark bags clung to the space beneath said eyes. Her cheek bones were prominent – like most survivors. But she was pale, hardly looked like she’d ever worked a day in the sun before. She was dirty, with dirt smeared across her cheek, on her hands, in the bed of her nails. 

  
“Damn,” he whistled, smirking. “I’m gonna make you an offer – what’s your name?”

  
“Ash,” she murmured, glancing down at the floor for a moment before looking back at the man above her.

  
“Well, Ash, I want to make you an offer,” he practically purred, swinging the bat once more, and Ash flinched, even as he rested it against his muscular leg. “But, before that, I’m being rude. I haven’t introduced myself, and there’s a lady present, after all. My name is Negan, at your service.”

  
He put his free hand on his chest and took a mock bow. Ash swallowed as his face drew near hers. She could see the lines around his eyes, across his forehead, outlining his mouth. He was older than her, but most leaders tended to be.

  
“I run a little Sanctuary,” Negan explain. “Safe, behind a fence. It’s a community. Makes its own food, trades with other communities. You come with me, and I’ll get you a job. You’ll be fed, clothed. We have hot, running water. Much better than camping out and waiting to die each night, right?”

  
Ash’s stomach sank, her chest tightening at his last words. The man didn’t know – right? He wasn’t one of Z’s customers, was he?

  
Before she could answer, one of the other men whistled, a low sound, and cocked the rifle he was holding. Negan’s head swiveled towards the sound, his almost playful expression turning serious, ready for the worst.

  
The man who’d whistled made a hand gesture Ash didn’t understand, and, before she could ask a question, Negan looked down at her and smirked, those wolfish qualities returning.  
Shit, she thought to herself.

  
“A test,” he ordered.

  
Before Ash could process what was happening, she was thrown into the stock room of the pharmacy and the door was shut behind her. Light came in from the full moon through a shattered window, and, closing her fists around empty air, Ash set her teeth, knowing those men set this up to watch her die.

  
They’d taken her daggers before she could protest, and she was face to face with three geeks climbing in through the window.

  
Slowly, she crept to the side of the shelving unit, scanning the shelves for anything she could use as a weapon. There was hardy more than colored pencils, a random ballpoint pen and a clipboard. None of those things were good enough for a solid kill, a protected kill.

  
Ash continued to creep around the shelves, ears sensitive to the shambling of the three geeks. They were much closer now than they had been, and she still didn’t have a weapon.  
Glancing up, she saw a dangling fluorescent light, holding on by one wire.

  
That was the ticket. Especially if she could lure all three beneath it a once, trap them or smash their skulls. That was the plan.

  
Ash tested her weight against the waist-level shelf in front of her, pushing down with what little strength she had. Her left shoulder complained, overly sensitive from a bad fall a few weeks back, but Ash didn’t make a sound. That was something she was getting good at: staying silent.

  
The shelf groaned a tiny ounce, and Ash froze, looking back in the direction of the geeks. They were even closer now, but they weren’t running in her direction, and Ash took that as her sign to climb the rest of the way up the shelf.

  
She attempted to ease her weight onto each, makeshift step, careful not to topple the shelf or let her boots thud too heavily over the metal. Sweat dripped down her back, even as she shivered in the cold night air without a good coat. The exertion was starting to get to her.

  
Hell, the entire situation was getting to her.

  
At the top, Ash balanced her feet on each side of the top shelf, straddling the board they were connected to. Below her, one of the geeks bumped into the shelf, nearly knocking Ash to the ground, but she ducked, heart thundering in her chest.

  
“C’mon,” she hissed at herself, straightening again.

  
Looking down, all three of the undead monsters were clawing at the shelf two below her, their rotting fingers attempting to latch onto her ankle, her boot, her shin, and pull her to her death.  
Ash bit the inside of her cheek, taking a tentative, shuffling step along the shelf, towards the dangling light. She had the attention of the geeks, so now she just needed to get them below the giant, fluorescent lamp.

  
Slowly, with all the knowledge in the world that her bridge could collapse, Ash crept along, arms outstretched, steadying herself, but also ready to catch herself if she did fall.

  
Movement caught her eyes, and Ash’s head snapped up, eyes focusing on the window opposite her. Beyond, watching, she could just make out Negan’s wolfish grin. The resolve in her to survive hardened like drying cement, and Ash continued to trek across the shelf.

  
At the edge, Ash looked down for the geeks.

  
They were still too far behind for her dangling light to hit them, and Ash’s teeth ground against each other, her jaw clenching as she backed up three steps.

  
This would have to do.

  
Without thinking too long, Ash took off running down the top shelf before launching herself through the air. She kicked off, pushing the shelf over, pinning two of the geeks under its massive weight, but, as she flew through the air, hands open, ready to grab the light when she reached it, Ash couldn’t help but wonder if this would work.

  
Catching the dangling light, Ash’s shoulder wrenched, and she let out a strangled cry, swinging through the air. Above her, the wiring holding the light groaned, and Ash looked up, watching bits of plaster break apart from the ceiling.

  
She didn’t have long to catch her breath, to steady her nerves, before the last geek was beneath her, reaching up for her legs. Ash curled inwards, holding her knees to her chest with all the core strength she could muster. Her abs burned, screamed at her.

  
“Fuck, fuck, fuck,” she murmured under her breath, now a solid ten feet off the ground. This wasn’t what her plan had been. Granted, she hadn’t planned this much at all. Sucking down a solid breath, her ribs almost refusing to expand, Ash shouted, “Goddammit!”

  
With that, she bounced, the light creaking, the plaster breaking, before she swung her legs forward, straight out, and then she swung backwards. As the light rocked forward again, Ash bounced it before letting go just as it started to drop and kicking out, flying through the air.

  
The light crashed atop the geek, the bulbs shattering into a million pieces as Ash twisted in the air, landing in a crouch. Out of instinct, she reached for the knife holster at her hip, but, as she quickly remembered when her hand closed around empty air, those had been taken from her.

  
With one geek out of the way, and the snarling coming from the pinned two, Ash decided to chance a further look around the store, hopefully being able to find something that she could get the walkers with from a distance and not have to ruin her boots over.

  
As Ash began to walk, her hip gave out, and she collapsed on the floor of the pharmacy, hands catching herself on the broken glass of a beer bottle. Her breathing was coming a little too ragged, a little too wheezy, but Ash didn’t have time for that.

  
Maybe if they saw she was injured, they’d leave her alone. Even if she needed the protection to heal the last of her injuries.

  
After a moment, Ash picked herself up, wiping her hands down her jeans, rolling out the pieces of glass. That was good enough.

  
With her slick, sticky hands, Ash scanned this side of the pharmacy, looking over the miscellaneous items.

  
Her eyes focused on a computer, and Ash sighed in relief.

  
She could use that.

  
Limping over to the spot, Ash yanked the chords out of the wall for the tower itself before crouching and wiggling it towards herself. It was the heavy kind, made with expensive metals, but that made sense for a medical store. They needed the memory.

  
Well, not anymore.

  
Ash slid her bloody fingers under the tower before wrapping her arms around it. Before, when she was full of nutrition and hadn’t been reduced to nothing in terms of weight, picking this up would have been nothing, not even a chore. She’d have been able to carry it under one arm with little strain.

  
Now, though, with her bum shoulder, her nonexistent nutrition, Ash could barely carry herself some days, even when adrenaline pumped in her veins.

  
Dropping the desktop on the first geek, Ash sucked down another breath, wincing with the pain. Turning to obscure herself from those watching her from the other side of the window, she lifted her t-shirt, checking to make sure none of the healing cuts along her ribs had come open.

  
Her skin was slick with sweat, glistening in the moonlight, but nothing had come open. Well, not seriously. The widest part of one of the cuts was leaking blood, a small rivulet running down her skinny torso.

  
Behind her, the last geek was continuing to groan, to snarl, at her.

  
“I’m comin’, I’m comin’, ya sack o’ shit,” she snapped at the undead freak of nature.

  
Ash pulled the tower towards her once more before she slipped, her body giving out on her.

  
For whatever reason, that set something off in Ash.

  
“I’m not your fucking entertainment!” she shouted at the window, picking herself up off the ground.

  
The door opened after a moment, and one of the men with Negan entered, dispatching the remaining geek beneath the shelf.

  
“That was ingenious,” Negan praised. “Swinging from that heavy-ass lamp? Brilliant.”

  
“I get by,” she retorted, looking down at her bleeding hands. “Give me my fucking knives back, jackass.”

  
“Is that any way to speak to your dear leader?” he countered, gesturing for one of the other men to offer her a rag from his back pocket.

  
“The Dear Leader is Kim Jong Un of North Korea, who, by the way, is most likely dead,” Ash snapped. “If you’re as psychopathic as that tyrant, I want nothing to do with you or your fucking _sanctuary_.”

  
Negan narrowed his eyes, swinging the bat within an inch of the side of Ash’s head. This time, she didn’t flinch, didn’t squeeze her eyes shut. She stared Negan down the entire time, waiting for the end to come, but it didn’t.

  
“Tie her up and throw her in the back of the truck,” he ordered the others.

  
“Fuck you,” she snarled, turning on the balls of her feet to punch the nearest man straight in the face.

  
He barely recoiled, and he was on her in a second, his hands wrapped around her throat. As he glowered down at her, Ash grinned, showing off the gap between her two front teeth, the gunk that had built up since she had last brushed her teeth.

  
“Do it,” she rasped at him.

  
“Nicolas,” Negan warned with a growl. “She doesn’t know the rules, so her punishment isn’t the same.”

  
The man, Nicolas, released his vice-like grip around Ash’s throat, and she rolled to the side, coughing as she sucked down several unsteady breaths.

  
“Now, we’ll either tie you up, as previously said, or you can get in the fucking truck on your own,” Negan growled.


	2. Just Kill Me

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> (A note for those that read the first chapter without the edit: My dumb ass named the villain the same thing as King Ezekiel because, again, dumb ass. They're not the same.)
> 
> So, trigger warning for sexual violence. Doesn't make it that far, but if you're sensitive to those themes, just a warning.

Ash sat on the edge of a cot in a common sleeping area, blankets pinned up to divide the beds into small rooms. Her hands were bandaged by the community’s doctor, but Ash had refused to say if she had other injuries. After getting to her cot, she’d pulled the bandages off, picking at the scabs.

In the dark, Ash felt very little. It had been lights out for over an hour, and, as far as she could tell, a curfew was being enforced by the saviors – which, truly, was a stupid ass name as far as Ash was concerned.

Narcissistic, egotistical, brutal. It applied to all of the saviors, but, most of all, it applied to Negan.

The asshat didn’t even acknowledge her after they made it to the Sanctuary, as he’d called it. He had given instructions to one of the men with her to bring her up to his office in the morning.

Though, really, if all went according to Ash, she’d be gone before sunrise. Sticking around with a bunch of men who thought they were more important than everyone else set her teeth on edge, reminded her of just how dangerous people could be.

Especially men.

Getting to her feet, Ash moved as silently as possible through the maze of beds and curtains. Her limp was still evident, but Ash shuffled that leg along, dragging it almost as she crept along.

In the dark, someone coughed, and Ash froze, waiting for a voice or footsteps, but, when none came, and the person who had coughed ceased to, she continued on her journey to leave the sleeping area.

She needed supplies. Yes, that would mean stealing, but who cared? These people were obviously doing just fine on their own. A couple cans, a few bottles of water, some dried food. They’d be fine without it. They probably wouldn't even notice. 

Getting her knives would be more difficult.

Ash had no idea where the armory would be, where the gifted knives would be. Those were hers, dammit, and there was no way Ash was leaving the compound without them. Besides, leaving without a weapon of any kind would mean certain death.

Being dead wasn’t conducive to revenge.

Granted, being dead also meant peaceful sleep.

Ash slid through the cracked doorway, her skeletal frame finally coming in handy. No one was outside the door, but that didn’t calm her nerves. Negan’s men were somewhere, patrolling the halls with automatic weapons that Ash couldn’t compete with – with or without her knives.

Somewhere along the way, ever since the world fell to pieces, Ash had learned to move nearly silent in the woods, over fallen leaves, over twigs and branches, but those skills didn’t apply to the concrete jungle, to some place as inorganic as some sort of factory in Virginia.

Her footsteps were too loud over the concrete, even as the young woman tried to move as stealthily as possible. If she could detect her footfalls, someone else could too. That’s how things worked. Nothing was truly _yours_ in the end times.

Nothing was truly guaranteed to work, let alone be safe.

Not with the dead up and about.

The factory halls were dim, and, on occasion, Ash was able to slip into an alcove, obscured by shadows, as she waited for someone to pass. She was in one of these spots when two of Negan’s men, his _Saviors_ , stopped directly in front of her.

They were both men, muscular. One had an AK-47 and the other held an AR-15 in his meaty hands. Each had a pistol strapped to their hips with a silencer, as well as a knife on their opposite hip.

Ash ground her teeth together until her jaw felt like it would pop from the pressure she was putting on it. They were just . . . standing there, almost as if they were taunting her, like they knew she was hiding out, trying to get away.

Finally, the one on the left spoke.

“Shit, you see that new piece of meat Negan brought back with him?”

Ash swallowed, relieving some of the pressure on her jaw. Instead, she knotted her hands into fists, squeezing them until blood coated her nail beds from puncture wounds.

They must know Z, she concluded. They just had to.

“Too bad she’s so skinny,” the one on the right scoffed. “I want something to hold onto when I’m plowing them, you know?”

Leftie chuckled, sweeping a hand through his tawny brown hair. He didn’t need to verbally confirm what Righty had asked – he agreed in every sense.

“Yeah, but she’s got all that hair,” Leftie countered. “Grip that when you’re doin’ ‘em from behind? Makes up for them bein’ so skinny sometimes.”

One of Ash’s hands drifted up to her thick black hair. If she got out of here alive, she’d need to chop it all off. Hell, if she stayed here – unwillingly or otherwise – she was going to shave it. Ruin whatever they found attractive.

Her thumb brushed over a raised scar on her neck, just behind her ear. Shit. She’d need just enough hair to keep that covered.

Scars were weaknesses.

Weaknesses were something she couldn’t afford.

“Too bad Negan’s got some of those rules, man,” Righty went on. “Fuck permission, I want her on call.”

Ash took a step back into the alcove, drawing further away from the men who were already threatening her existence having only seen a glimpse of her. Her back connected with something, and a broom handle flew by her head, smacking the ground.

_Shit._

The two men swiveled in her direction, sinking back on their haunches as they brought their guns off, safety mechanisms switched off in an instant.

“Come out of there,” Righty ordered, his voice morphing to a growl.

Ash didn’t want to move.

She had no promises they wouldn’t hurt her, wouldn’t do something she couldn’t erase from her mind – not that there wasn’t plenty of that.

“We’ll start shootin’,” Leftie added.

Well, bullet wounds weren’t conducive to escape nor a revenge mission, and Ash swallowed, hands once more knotted into tight fists. There was more blood on her fingertips now, in the bed of her nails. She’d need to scrub it to get it all off – if she lived.

Stepping into the light, the two men relaxed, shooting toothy grins at each other before lowering their guns, putting the safeties on once more.

“Well, well, well, what do we have here?” Righty crooned, pushing his rifle around to his back as he approached Ash.

“Looks like we got someone breakin’ the rules,” Leftie added on, coming around behind Ash.

She didn’t move, only stood with her spine straight and watching a point beyond Righty’s shoulder.

_Don’t flinch. Don’t blink. Don’t show pain. Don’t show fear._

The mantra ran on repeat through her mind, a desperate reminder of how to survive. She could do this. She had to. Maybe she could kill them and use their weapons to run away.

“We’re gonna have to tell the boss man,” Righty taunted. “Unless . . .”

“Maybe you’re willin’ to exchange some services for silence,” Leftie finished.

“No,” Ash growled out through her clenched teeth. “I’d rather die.”

That was true at least. She’d much rather die than drift back to her roots, and these two weren’t going to persuade her to do what they wanted.

“That can be arranged, sweetheart,” Leftie crooned in her ear, his breath hot.

Still, Ash didn’t flinch, didn’t even move.

“Then kill me,” she spat. “Cowards.”

Righty moved faster than Ash anticipated, and he clapped a hand over her mouth as he spun her around and pulled her flush with his body. She could feel the threats of muscle underneath, could feel the hammer mechanism for his handgun digging into the back of her right thigh.

“Now, be a good girl, and don’t scream,” Leftie grinned, palming himself in his jeans.

Anger flashed through Ash’s stormy gray eyes, and she steeled herself for an escape plan. It might end with her dead or injured, but she’d rather go out swinging than go down under the force of these two jackasses. 

Ash drew herself up, using the arms wrapped around her by Righty to keep upright before she brought her legs up and in. With a burst of power, fueled by rage and adrenaline, she kicked out, hitting Leftie square in the chest. Simultaneously, she bit down on Righty’s hand, blood bursting across her teeth.

The pair cried out, likely raising alarms for whatever Saviors or negligible citizens were around, but Ash was already on a roll, having twisted and knocking Righty off balance, sending them both to the ground. His pistol came out of his holster, skidding across the floor, but Ash yanked his knife free before stabbing him directly in the thigh.

Not that it mattered because Leftie was grabbing her under the arms as she twisted and kicked, attempting to free herself.

“You’re gonna pay for that, you fucking bitch!” Righty screamed, pressing his bleeding palm to his bleeding leg.

“Then fucking kill me,” Ash hissed back, digging her nails into Leftie’s wrist. Anything to injure him just a little more. Anything to make them angrier. “Just kill me!”

Bootsteps were running in their direction as Ash was dragged upwards and spun around to face Leftie. She grinned up at him, off balance, but he didn’t keep her upright for long before knocking her flat with a punch to the gut.

Ash laid on the ground, flat on her back as Leftie and Righty closed in on her overhead. She continued to grin up at them through her bloodied teeth, and then, she started laughing.


	3. Into the Fryer

“What the sweet fuck is going on here?” a deep voice bellowed.

Ash was still laughing, though it was quickly turning into coughing as she rolled onto her side, propping herself up on her hands. Before she could get any further, one of the men – she couldn’t tell which – sent a sharp kick to her back, just below her right shoulder blade, and she rolled forward, that laughter mangled by a painful cry.

“Clinton! Alexander! What the fuck do you think you’re doing?”

The two men were yanked away from Ash’s viewpoint from where she was trying to pick herself up off the floor, her arms shaking. She was not, in any form of the word, doing well.

Breathing hurt. Her throat was closed off, preventing her from swallowing. But, worst of all, was the adrenaline still rushing in her, heartbeat tangible on her tongue, and she was crashing hard already.

“What did you _do_?”

“It wasn’t our fault, boss!” one of them was whimpering, trying to explain.

“Yeah! She attacked us!”

“I really fucking doubt that,” the newcomer snapped. “No one’s stupid enough to attack a Savior.”

“Well, she did!” the second snapped back.

There was the sound of flesh connecting to flesh, a harsh _snap_ , and he let out a strangled groan, likely doubled over in pain.

Ash didn’t look back.

Maybe she could crawl away. Maybe they wouldn’t notice if she disappeared.

No one cared about her before, anyway, so why should this be any different?

Her shoulder gave out, and Ash found herself on the ground again, panting. That damn fall kept coming back to bite her in the ass.

“You!” their boss snapped in Ash’s direction, seeming to notice her for the first time.

He strode over, wrapping a large hand around Ash’s thin forearm and yanked her upwards, earning a startled and mewling cry from the girl as she flew through the air, connecting against this man’s chest.

Alarm bells went off as her brain told her this was part of their game, and Ash tried to whirl around, to fight back – _anything_. Anything to get away. Anything to not have to go through this again.

“Hey,” he growled in her ear. “Knock it off.”

Ash fought the urge to whimper, as she forced herself to go still.

“Please, just kill me,” she begged, her voice a mere whisper.

“Bring her to my office,” the man holding her ordered. “Take those two to Carson, and then I want them in their rooms, guarded. They aren’t to go anywhere unless I say so.”

“Yes, Negan,” a fourth man replied.

Ash’s eyes went wide as she realized Negan, in a way, had technically rescued her. He was _holding_ her. Ash wanted out of his arms, away from his touch – now even more desperately – but there was no where to go, and, as much as Ash didn’t want to admit it, she was scared of Negan.

“Can you walk or does one of my men need to carry you?” he asked her, his voice hot in her ear.

Ash shied away, grimacing. She wasn’t sure if he could see her face while she couldn’t see his, but this was . . . stressful. He was too close. They were all too close.

“I-I’m f-f-fine,” she stammered out.

Negan scoffed, letting go finally.

“Simon, take her to my office,” he ordered. “I gotta go get their side of the story.”

 

Ash was deposited on a plush, leather couch. It was black.

_Perfect for hiding blood stains_ , Ash thought to herself as she curled in on her side and away from Simon. He’d carried her through the maze of halls and up a flight of stairs before bringing her in here.

Her skin crawled, burned.

She wanted to beg for a shower, for bleach to bathe in, but she knew she wouldn’t be granted that request. She’d already been allowed to shower only a few hours earlier when she’d been brought to the Sanctuary. They weren’t going to waste the water on someone like her.

_Someone like her._

Someone dirty, someone broken. Someone whose thoughts never stayed in one place for long. Someone who was trained to be a good girl but had been fighting it for the last four and a half years – give or take. Someone used.

Someone better off dead.

That was the moral of the story. Ash was better off dead, but, for some insidious reason, she just couldn’t quite make it there.

Tears pricked her eyes as she looked down at her palms. They were dotted in crescent moon scars from years of digging her nails into her flesh, forcing herself to bleed.

Simon’s radio crackled before Negan’s voice came through.

“Simon, offer our guest something to change into – her clothes are pretty bloodied up.”

“Got it, boss,” Simon said into the radio before looking over at Ash. “I’m gonna get you a change of clothes.”

“I’m fine,” she murmured.

“It ain’t a request, kid.”

No, of course it wasn’t. Nothing here was a request. It was an order. Do this, do that. Don’t do this, don’t do that.

Ash’s fists closed once more at the familiarity of the thoughts.

For four months, she’d been free. She’d been alone, untouchable, healing, but, now, she’d just landed herself in a place that most likely did business with Z, or they were the same breed of evil.

Out of the frying pan, into the fryer.

 

Ash looked at herself in the mirror, twisting around to see the forming bruise on her back where she’d been kicked. A plethora of scars marred her skin, plenty jagged, plenty thin and precise. There was one in particular that had been caused by a pile of smoldering embers being dumped on her bare back.

In her head, Ash could hear herself screaming all over again. Could smell the repugnant stench of burnt flesh in her nostrils.

Shaking herself loose, Ash pulled on the t-shirt she’d been given. It was a v-neck, and it showed far too much. Without the long sleeves she’d been wearing when she’d come across Clinton and Alexander, without the jacket she’d been wearing at the pharmacy, all of her scars were on display.

There was a series of slashes on her left forearm that hadn’t quiet healed yet. They’d been deep when she’d received them, something she’d needed stitches for. It was the closest she’d gotten to death, but it hadn’t quite worked out.

Like always.

The second brand was on her chest, above her heart, and it was peaking out just enough that she knew she’d be asked about it. It was too big to hide, too obvious to call anything other than a brand.

Then there were the burns on her right shoulder and bicep. Cigarettes, matches, fireplace poker. It was all there. Dimpled, scattered, tight-packed, raised. Like braille on her skin.

Dressed now, Ash left her dirty clothes in the hamper as she’d been instructed and nudged her way out of the bathroom, holding her boots in her hands, feet covered only in socks. They’d given her sweatpants, and she’d had to cinch the drawstring to its limit to get them to stay up, and the hem of the pants swallowed her feet in a pool of navy blue.

On the other side of the door, Ash froze, finding Negan sitting at his desk, looking over a file of papers. He wore glasses, something Ash hadn’t expected. Somehow glasses seemed to soften Negan’s appearance and the wolffish demeanor of his, like he wouldn’t so much as bash someone’s head in with a barbed-wire covered bat than go over paperwork.

Negan sensed her presence before Ash could get herself together, and he turned around in his office chair, looking up from his papers.

“You know, Ash, Clinton and Alexander had some very unfavorable things to say about you,” he began, putting his work aside and steepling his fingers just in front of his mouth. “If everything they said is true, I’m gonna have to kill you. Just to make sure the rules are respected.”

Ash swallowed.

_Of course_ , they lied. People in power always lied. They’d never admit they’d fucked up.

She doubted Negan would take her side, would even listen to her, but on the off chance she’d get to one up Clinton and Alexander, she’d take it.

“Sit down, Ash,” he ordered, pointing at one of the arm chairs across from his desk.

Ash moved slowly – not from trying to delay the inevitable, but from the pain in her right hip. She must have exasperated the injury when she’d been dropped on the concrete floor, having twisted out of Righty’s arms. She wasn’t sure which man was which.

By the time Ash sat, Negan had taken off his glasses, and he was looking at every injury and scar he could see on her exposed arms and chest.

“What happened to you?” he asked. She couldn’t be sure if he meant the scars or in the hallway.

“Your men,” Ash replied, trying not to make it an insult in his direction, “wanted something to fuck, and when I refused, they decided they were going to take it.”

Negan straightened, his large hands spreading out over the desk, and he leaned forward, towards Ash’s face.

“They did _what_?” he practically growled.

“Th-they we-were talking a-about h-how they w-w-wished I wasn’t s-so sk-skinny so th-they’d have m-more to h-hold o-on to,” she stammered out, twisting her hands in the spare fabric around her thighs.

“I need every detail.”

And so, Ash gave Negan every detail, trying to keep herself together as she went. She did her best to quote them exactly, to make sure Negan knew that his men weren’t angels.

When asked why she was wandering around after lights out, Ash said she was restless, used to sleeping during the day, and that she just wanted to wear off some energy.

This wasn’t entirely false.

Negan seemed to buy it.

“You haven’t gotten the rundown of the rules yet, but I have a very important one,” he explained to her as Ash tried to focus on breathing and not throwing up on the rug beneath her feet. “Anyone who tries to or does rape someone in my Sanctuary, will be executed.”

Ash pulled a shaking breath down her lungs.

Maybe they didn’t have anything to do with Z. Maybe.

Maybe this was a game. A long con.

Either way, Ash wasn’t going to trust someone like Negan. She couldn’t.

“You know, now that I have to kill off two of my Saviors, what would you say to doing some runs with us?” he proposed.

“I-I can barely w-walk,” Ash answered, still not meeting his eye. She wanted to pierce her palms with her nails once more, but he was watching her too closely. “You don’t even know me.”

“Lucky for you, pumpkin, I won’t need you for a month. Besides, I’ve seen how creative you are.”

Negan had flipped his script from where he’d been with Ash in the pharmacy, and she hunched her shoulders up around her ears, trying to shrink into nothingness.

She couldn’t trust this man.

She couldn’t stay here.

Ash needed to heal, stockpile what she could, and then she needed to run.

This place wasn’t safe. No where was safe while she was still this close to Z.

“What the hell is that?” Negan demanded, standing from his chair. It rolled back, bumping the wall.

Ash looked up, finding the man starting around his desk. Anger clouded his face, and Ash, like a small rabbit, flung herself from the armchair, scrambling to get to her feet, but she was too weak, too broken, and Ash hit the ground, backing under the massive desk Negan sat behind.

“Ash, I don’t hurt women, so I need you to come out here and show me what’s on your chest,” Negan ordered, his feet stopping just in front of where Ash was trying to protect herself from whatever rage was so apparent in Negan.

“Pl-please – _please_ – don’t l-lie t-to me,” Ash murmured, not wanting to move.

“I’m not lyin’, kid.”

There was a softness in Negan’s voice, like he wanted to cushion her, like he really wanted her to trust him. Or maybe that was just wishful thinking.

Ash swallowed, shifting onto her knees, and she took as deep a breath as her injured ribs would allow her. The pain caused her to let out a strangled _angh_ , and Negan appeared in front of her, crouching. Ash jerked back, smacking the top of her head against the underside of the desk.

“Fuck,” she whimpered, curling around her side.

“Shit, this day really isn’t goin’ well for ya, huh?”

“You should’ve left me,” Ash said, wheezing slightly with the pain in her ribs. “Or killed me.”

“You seem pretty intent on dyin’.”

“If I was intent on it, I’d have done it already,” she countered, looking up.

Negan sighed, shaking his head. Maybe he understood the apathy Ash had with living, or maybe he’d seen it before, but Ash was indifferent, resting her head on the rug.

Ash was tired, worn out from the adrenaline and the events of her day. The pain was wearing thin on her, drowning her in the sensations.

“Ash?” Negan prompted. “What happened to your chest?”

She sighed, wanting nothing more than to melt through the floor. Maybe if she just showed Negan it would silence him. Maybe he’d leave her alone.

It was unlikely.

Ash crawled out, stopping on her knees in front of Negan, left hand knotted in the excess fabric of her pants as she reached up, not looking at Negan, but over his shoulder, and pushed her shirt aside, letting the brand reveal itself.

The brand that had burned her skin had been custom made, and it was circular in shape with an Z in the center. Two arrows crossed at the bottom of the circle, crossing just below the arrowheads.

“What the fuck?” Negan demanded, reaching towards Ash.

She stiffened, the hand in the fabric of her sweatpants shifting to puncture her palm.

Before Negan touched her, he stopped.

“Someone did – _that_ to you?”

Ash nodded, trying not to throw up. The pain in her hand was helping, was grounding, and she was able to pull her eyes over to Negan.

He was studying the brand, his brows tugging low over his eyes, his mouth downturned, and his jaw was set. A mixture of rage and confusion, of curiosity and disgust.

“C-can I p-put my sh-irt back?” she stammered.

“What? Shit, yeah.”

She twisted the fabric in her hands, pulling both sides of her shirt collar towards her throat.

“Who did that?”

_It’s a trick_ , Ash told herself. _He wants the confirmation of Z; he’s going to return you to Z._

“They’re gone,” she lied, looking at the ground. “It doesn’t matter.”

“Whoever did that deserves worse than death,” Negan declared.

Ash tightened her fist, the blood leaking over her fingers. She’d need to clean the new wounds, or at least wash them out when she could. She couldn’t go to the Sanctuary doctor without the possibility of Negan being filled in.

Besides, there wasn’t an explanation of what happened to her hands other than she was doing it herself, and that was another weakness that could exploited, and Ash, while certain she wasn’t going to stay at the Sanctuary – either alive or dead – she didn’t want her time there to be any more unbearable than it needed to be.


	4. Unwilling Savior

Two days after her conversation with Negan, Ash found a few scraps of paper while she was in Carson’s office. The doctor hadn’t been paying attention, and Ash pocketed the tiny notebook and a pen, hiding her hands in the jacket pockets as she waited for Carson to finish writing out a series of notes he wanted to keep on hand for her file.

Coming to visit a doctor hadn’t been something Ash had wanted, but Negan insisted – as her boss, and Ash hadn’t been able to protest. Negan had insisted that he wanted a full checkup of Ash, and while she understood _why_ Negan wanted that, Ash managed to convince him that any results he’d get would be skewed by old injuries, the events at the pharmacy, and what happened with Clinton and Alexander.

Negan listened.

Carson had drawn a sample of blood, getting a full view of the burn scars that danced below Ash’s elbow on her right arm. She didn’t let him get a view of the slashes or her back or the brands. She also didn’t let him see her stomach.

In short, Ash played the game she needed to, but she twisted it, made it her own.

When she got back to her room, having made her way slowly with the cane she’d been handed by Negan the morning after her arrival and appointment to probational Savior, Ash locked the door before pulling out the notebook and pen.

She needed to keep everything written down before the gaslighting started. Before they made her question her experiences and memories.

Before she went insane.

 

**Day One:**

Ash had witnessed Clinton and Alexander executed in the center of the factory.

The room looked like a market, and everyone had gathered in a clump. Negan and Ash had stood on a cat walk while Dwight (burned man, made Ash’s skin crawl) had stoked a roaring fire in a kiln.

“I won’t mention your promotion yet,” he said to her, not bothering to look at Ash as he leaned on the railing. “Today is about a lesson – a reminder that these two fucked up and that the rules must be obeyed.”

Ash hadn’t responded.

She needed to stay silent, keep herself from pissing him or anyone else off.

He hadn’t mentioned the brand that morning, and Ash was more than okay with that. She’d been able to put on a shirt that covered it and had a higher neck, revealing only a hint of her collarbones. That was safer.

 

**Day Nine:**

Ash had been fully ingrained as a Savior now while staying at the bottom of the food chain amongst them. She was above the average joe in the Sanctuary, but every other Savior with experience was above her, greater than her, able to bark down her throat.

She was able to get whatever she wanted for meals, and she didn’t have to wait in line. She wasn’t even expected to wait, and people moved to the side, allowing her to surpass them.

People nodded at her as she limped by, her grip tight on her cane. Midway through the day, a young girl came up to Ash, asking for a problem to be solved.

“What do you need?” Ash asked the little girl, bending over. Normally, she’d crouch, but a storm was blustering outside, thick curtains of rain pelting the windows of the Sanctuary, and the pain in Ash’s hip was much worse than it had been the day before.

“Mr. Negan says we’re supposed to come to Saviors when we need help solving things,” the girl explained. “There’s these two boys that stole a doll my aunt made me, and they won’t give it back.”

_Oh, great, I’m a kindergarten teacher_ , Ash’s notes read. This had to be the most asinine thing that she could’ve been asked to do that day.

Not that Ash had anything else to do.

Negan hadn’t exactly bothered himself into sitting down and giving Ash her assignments within the Sanctuary, and, so far, Ash had been wandering, trying to find everything she’d need when it came time to making a run for it.

Ash had taken the hand of the little girl, allowing herself to be guided off towards some of the dorm-like rooms – the ones Ash had been put in the day she’d been brought to the Sanctuary. At first, the idea of being led off into the world without a knowledge of where she was going had made Ash’s stomach knot.

Then she looked at the girl. At the tear tracks on her grimy face. At the way she was just a little too bony.

It was too jarring a familiarity to Ash, and she accepted her journey off to an unknown location.

When they arrived, the little girl – Lily – pointed at a pair of two teenage boys, probably about fourteen, who were sitting on the floor next to a cot, flipping through a bind up of comics.

“Stay here,” Ash had ordered the little girl before she pulled her shoulders back and started across the room.

The two boys, probably a solid ten years younger than Ash, looked up. At first, they seemed largely uninterested, and then the blond pointed at the cane in Ash’s grip.

“I hear you’re being snot-nosed brats,” Ash drawled as she looked down at them.

“What?” the brunette boy replied.

“I know ya took the girl’s doll,” Ash sighed, tapping on the comic book with the bottom of her cane to press it away, getting their full attention. “Now, where is it?”

“Why do you care?” the blond scoffed.

“There’s rules against stealing,” she countered. “And since I can’t imagine that two teenage boys want to play with a doll, I can only assume you stole it.”

_Manipulation._

Ash had learned the skill a long time ago, having been able to watch experts up close and personal. Now, though, it was her turn, and these two were starting to get a little anxious, shooting glances back and forth to each other, shifting on the ground.

“Listen, if you refuse to cooperate, it won’t be pretty for anyone,” she informed them, looking at her nails like she couldn’t give a shit about them. “But, hey, at least I’m not the asshole picking on little girls.”

The blond shot to his feet, attempting to vault past Ash, but the woman flipped her cane to the side, tripping him and sending the boy sprawling, his chin connecting with the floor.

“Only the guilty run,” she _tsked_ , looking back at the brunette who was staring wide-eyed between Ash and his friend. “Now, are you going to be stupid, or are you going to give me the _fucking_ doll?”

“I-I’ll get it!” the brunette stammered out.

“Good boy,” Ash crooned, a grin spreading across her face.

In truth, Ash wanted to shower. She felt dirty, cruel, like she shouldn’t be allowed to abuse literal children over something so innocuous as a doll. The one on the floor, picking himself up, had blood dripping from the cut on his chin.

She couldn’t show it, but she wanted to cry, and, more than anything, Ash wanted to press her nails into her scarred hands.

 

**Day Eleven:**

A movie was being shown in the marketplace that night. A classic, one of Ash’s favorites: _Friday the 13 th._ One of the primary movies that put slasher films on everyone’s radar. Ash had gotten there about five minutes before the showing started, having parked herself in the second-to-last row where she could see the massive screen easily, but she could also watch people jump and hide their faces from the scares.

It occurred to Ash that if she found more horror movies while out on this run Negan was insisting on taking her on, maybe he’d let those be shown too.

Or, Ash reminded herself, she could horde them and take them with her when she left.

Ash shook her head. That was absurd. She didn’t need to bring anything so useless when she escaped, and, besides, she could still leave things a little brighter (or spookier, depending on how it was looked at) while she was still at the Sanctuary.

Part of Ash wondered if it was strange for them to be showing a movie where a bunch of people died during the end times while millions – if not _billions_ – of people were already dead, but, in truth, Ash didn’t care. She loved _Friday the 13 th_, and she’d enjoy the movie if she damn well pleased.

When Ash settled back in her folding chair, she stretched her leg out ahead of her, crossing her arms over her chest. This was gonna be good.

Maybe she was getting a little too desensitized if the idea of things that went bump in the night didn’t even make her flinch anymore. Or maybe she just knew what real threats were now.

“This seat taken?”

Ash shook her head, watching as the opening credits started to roll. She bit the inside of her cheek, suppressing a grin as she prepared to see something from _before_ play across the screen. Oh, this was gonna be good. _So_ good.

Looking over, she found Negan seating himself next to her, and Ash straightened, jolting forward, the joy draining from her veins as she gripped the underside of the seat.

“What?” Negan asked, crossing his ankle over his knee. His legs were spread, and the knee of the crossed leg pressed into Ash’s thigh. “C’mon, si’ down – you looked so excited a moment ago. Got some damn _life_ in your eyes.”

Because she had been. A moment ago. Before a man she’d watched murder two others in cold blood, who oscillated between hot and cold, vicious and calm, with such ease had sat down next to her. Before that man was now touching her.

Ash shifted in her seat, sitting pin straight as she stared straight ahead. Suddenly, the movie was no longer fun. Nothing was fun. In fact, Ash wanted to leave, but Negan had already noticed that the movie was something she had been excited about.

Now, Ash’s desire to leave had strengthened. She wanted to run away from the Sanctuary more than ever. Disappear into the woods surrounding the Sanctuary, vanish into thin air. Safety wasn’t always guaranteed in numbers.

Negan was too close, and his knee was still pressing into her thigh, over another set of cuts that Ash had been hiding from them all. She was trying not to show pain on her face as she forced herself into a neutral set of features.

Nausea crept along Ash’s stomach, and her skin felt like she had ants crawling over it. He was too close. Her face was on fire, and not from whatever lurid detail was creeping along Negan’s mind.

_He was too close._

“Oh, relax,” Negan sighed. “I don’t bite.”

Then, with a toothy grin, he added, “unless that’s what you want.”

Ash twitched, turning her head to the side. No, she didn’t want Negan to bite. She didn’t want anyone to bite. Not the living or the dead.

Negan was watching her as Ash stared straight ahead, trying to focus on the movie instead of the man who left her feeling like she needed a shower just by proximity. _Friday the 13 th_, her favorite. She needed this. Needed the reward – if it could be called that.

If he wanted attention, Ash wasn’t going to give it to him. She couldn’t. He’d never let it die, never let it go. He was far too clingy of a person for Ash to even acknowledge him. For Negan, attention was power.

It was impossible for Ash to focus or even enjoy _Friday the 13 th_. She was too hypervigilant, too stressed about the knee touching her thigh. At some point, she stared ahead just to make it look like she was watching the movie, even as she listened for any sort of minute movement that could give her a hint that Negan was about to –

“Ash.”

She swallowed before forcing herself to turn her head, meeting Negan’s hungry and intense gaze.

“I need to talk to you about something.”

“We-we shouldn’t, uh, be r-rude,” Ash stammered. “P-people a-are trying to wa-watch the mo-movie.”

Negan hummed slightly, considering Ash’s suggestion. Ash herself wasn’t a fan of her suggestion, but the last thing she wanted was someone harboring hate for her. It was easier to become nothing when people were neutral on you, when no one had strong feelings one way or the other.

“C’mon,” he ordered.

Ash got to her feet, moving for the first time in almost two weeks without her cane. It was in her room, ready to be used if necessary, but she was attempting to maneuver without it.

Besides, she still viewed it as what she had used to knock that blond boy – Isiah, apparently – flat on the ground. A weapon. A danger. Tainted. Something that should be soaked in acid and permanently disposed of. No one should hurt children. Not even the woman who was practically a child.

Negan observed Ash’s lean body for a moment too long before he, too, got to his feet.

The pair departed, Ash moving better than she had since long before she’d come to the Sanctuary, but she was still slower than Negan who strode with long, confident strides. He was bold in every way, a large, imposing man in a leather jacket who carried a baseball bat wrapped in barbed wire. It wouldn’t have mattered if he barely cleared five-foot, he’d still have the confidence of a tiny dog standing up to a mastiff.

Sharp, dangerous, the kind who a simple touch from will puncture you and make you bleed. Poisonous, acidic, degrading.

Ash refused to let herself consider trusting him. She couldn’t trust a man like him. Hell, she doubted she could trust a man ever again.

“Your room is closer, yeah?”

He looked over his shoulder as he asked, one black eyebrow quirked as he smirked at her, perfect dimples deepening as he observed the woman behind him, the unwilling Savior.

“Why?” Ash countered.

Immediately, she regretted the question. Immediately, she regretted opposing her _dear leader_. She shouldn’t have done that. She really shouldn’t have done that.

Ash drew up short, tucking her chin to her chest as she waited for a blow.

“You comin’?”

Looking up, peeling open a single eye, Ash found him watching her, still two or three yards ahead of her. His brows had pulled together, and the wrinkles around his eyes had deepened as he watched her, frowning.

In that moment, Ash realized just how much older he was than her.

It wasn’t the gray waging war on the black in his hair, in his beard that had clued her in. It was the wrinkles that she somehow hadn’t focused on till now. As she stared at them, it occurred to her that, yeah, she’d seen them at the pharmacy, but they hadn’t registered.

“I – what do you want?”

Negan turned fully, his baseball bat resting gently on his shoulder, a reminder that he could easily swing it over and into her skull. His other hand was tucked into the pocket of his leather moto jacket, giving dimension to his flat abdomen.

Too many details of Negan’s physique were in Ash’s head, and she could feel the heat creeping up her neck as her throat tightened. She wasn’t supposed to notice these things. She _couldn’t_ notice these things while she needed to focus on getting out.

“The run’s coming up a little sooner than we thought,” Negan explained. “I wanted to go over some details and see how you were healing.”

Ash opened her mouth to say something before she shut it once more. What was she supposed to say to something to rational and businesslike? There truly wasn’t anything she could.

“My room is nearby, yes,” she answered finally.

Maybe he was lying, Ash pondered as she reengaged with walking. She joined Negan, and the man fell into step beside her, slowing to keep even with her. Once more, he was too close.

“I still have a lot of questions about that scar on your chest,” he said.

Ash winced.

Not necessarily in pain, but certainly in despair. Of course, he wanted to know more. Of course, he wasn’t going to let this go. Negan couldn’t let anything go. Like a dog with a bone. A kid who didn’t want to share. A geek with fresh prey.

“It’s old – it doesn’t matter anymore,” Ash said, trying to explain while saying nothing at all.

“You say that, pumpkin, but if someone injured one of my Saviors – even before they were a Savior – I want to know everything.”

“Have you considered some things are personal?”

There was her mouth again.

Ash kept walking this time, but she was starting to really question if they were going to attend to business or if Negan was going to beat the shit out of her.

In a way, Ash debated if that was what she wanted. If she was going to insist on being a brat or mouthy, then maybe she missed the pain. Was that it? Did she miss the pain?

Ash shook her head, to herself really, but she knew Negan was paying attention to her.

“I don’t care where you went to school before shit went down, and I don’t care if you like scrapbooking,” Negan countered as Ash gestured for a turn they needed to take. “I don’t care if you prefer Bud Light over Michelob. It doesn’t matter. What fuckin’ matters is if someone’s gonna be a fuckin’ problem – and I don’t mean you, kid. I mean whoever you know from before we found you in that pharmacy.”

“Shit I’ve seen, I ain’t a kid,” she scoffed.

Ash meant to say that under her breath, but Negan heard her clear as day.

He caught her forearm, spinning her around and pushing her up against the wall. Ash sucked down a breath, body tensing as she stared up at the older man. He’d dropped the bat to his side, but he was so close to having his entire body up against her.

She shook her head, resisting the urge to start crying. He was too close.

_Too close. Too close. Too close._

_Too close._

“Is there a reason you’re such a brat sometimes?” he growled, face inches from Ash’s.

She was shaking from how hard she was clenching her entire body. Ash wanted nothing more than to bolt, than to run as far away as possible, but there was no way her body would allow that.

This was all too familiar. It was all too painful and strikingly similar.

“I’m sorry,” she whimpered.

Negan stared at her, the taut pull of his lips back over his gleaming teeth relaxing. His entire face was relaxing.

“I-I don’t – I’m sorry.”

“We can talk tomorrow.”

Negan let go of Ash’s arm, backing away from her. He stared at her for a moment longer, as if willing Ash to spill all her secrets, but Ash couldn’t. She just couldn’t.

 

**Day Thirteen:**

Negan hadn’t come to Ash’s room the next day as he’d said, and that was okay. It was the next day that there was a knock on Ash’s door.

She looked up from the book she was reading, curled up on her bed below the window. Ash wasn’t wearing her boots, didn’t have a jacket on, and her sleeves were pushed up to her elbows. In the harsh morning light, the scars were much more evident than they had been at two in the morning in Negan’s office.

Negan entered before Ash could think to pull her sleeves down, and she stared at him, wondering what the hell was going to come out of his mouth, but Negan didn’t speak. Not at first. He was staring at her arms.

“Show me your arms,” he said, the words measured like the reserves of sugar the Sanctuary still had.

Ash shook her head.

“Look, I’m sure you’ve got your own scars or pieces of you that aren’t on display for everyone else, so why can’t I have that, too?” she countered.

He appeared to consider the information as he made his way across the room. Ash sat the book she was reading – _Jane Eyre_ – on the bed next to her and sat up, pressing her back flat against the wall, drawing her legs up in front of her.

She’d kicked hard enough to free herself before, maybe she’d do it again.

Though there was no guarantee Negan was anything other than granite.

“Listen, peaches, I think you’re interesting, but you remind me of a psychology project, and I wanna know – what makes little Ash tick?”

“Right now? _You_ do.”

Ash practically spat it as her hands moved to where her knives _should_ have been, but she hadn’t been given them back yet, despite living in this purgatory as a Savior – a Savior without weapons wasn’t much of a Savior at all.

Negan grinned, a wide, toothy look that showed off how white his teeth were. That wolfish quality was back, the one that made Ash feel like prey, like she was surely about to be his supper, and that rage in her veins was replaced with trepidation and anxiety.

“You’re a little spitfire, ain’t ya?” he chuckled.

Ash didn’t answer, instead choosing to pull the sleeves of her shirt down and over her arms, all the way passed her hands where she knotted them up, going as far as to obscure the scabs and scars over her palms.

“What’s the run, Negan?”

Negan smirked, his grin shrinking, showing less of his teeth, and he turned, sitting down on the bed. Ash stiffened, her blood running ice cold as he scooted back until his back was against the wall, his hand close enough he could grab Ash if he chose.

“Right to business,” he observed – though it was probably meant to be more praise than anything.

He reached into his breast pocket of his leather jacket, pulling out a stack of paper, folded into fourths.

“You’re much nimbler than any of the blunderbusses I’ve employed thus far,” Negan stated, unfolding the paper. Ash watched him carefully – not his face, but his body. For signs that her undoing was about to happen. “There’s an army base about sixty miles from here – surrounded by the undead fucks. I’ve got an outpost stationed not far from it, and they’re more than positive it’s untouched.”

Negan paused, looking over at Ash, and she looked up at him. The intensity in his gaze was such that she quickly turned her attention to her hands.

“I want it,” he growled. “There’s guns and ammo, Kevlar, food, _fuel_ – fucking everything we could need. I just need a little help from someone who’s a little more creative than the jocks I’m currently working with.”

Ash chewed the information. Runs she could do. They were within the wheelhouse of nearly everyone now that the end had come. Sure, this might be a little more complicated than most of the runs she was used to – the scale of it alone was monumental, not to mention there were likely to be geeks in riot gear, making dispatching them more difficult.

But there was that part of her that still wanted praise for being good at her job, for being acknowledged and told she was useful.

_That part was stupid_.

It wasn’t like she could say no, regardless, to Negan’s wishes.

“When do you want to make the run?” she asked, wrapping her arms around her legs and curling over them.

“Fuck, I knew I liked you,” he purred, too close for comfort. “The sooner the better, peaches, but we ain’t goin’ till the doc clears you.”

_Great_.

Ash had almost forgotten about the doctor. He’d been asking to do a more thorough physical, but Ash had kept deflecting, saying his results would be skewed, and the science-minded man had bought it.

“I’m still moving slow,” she said, “but we’re getting there.”

“Shit, I knew it was a good thing to bring you back.”


	5. Alright, Bitch, Let's Tango

**Ten Days Later**

 

Ash sat in the passenger seat of a red F150. The Ford was in great shape as far as Ash could tell, but she hadn’t exactly been able to look under the hood before they’d headed out.

Now, though, she had her feet on the dash, watching the forest outside as the two Saviors – Simon and a man named Will – talked at length about some project Ash wasn’t aware of the details to. Occasionally, a geek would be seen shambling along the side of the road, and it would lunge towards the parade of vehicles, but they were all faster than a geek.

Driving, of course, was Negan.

He was too much of a control freak to allow anything else.

Ash wasn’t wearing much compared to the men in the truck. Yes, she had jeans on, and, yes, she was wearing heavy boots – combat boots salvaged from a geek on the side of the road – but the rest of her attire was limited. She couldn’t be constricted while moving, especially if she was the one who was going to be pulling an acrobatic stunt.

She’d pulled on a sports bra that morning. Her chest was the only part of herself that she was willing to constrict. Her chest – a B-cup last she had been aware – was going to get in the way, and the sports bra sucked her flat, keeping her from bouncing or feeling like her breasts would slip out of place. That wasn’t an option. She had things to do, and that didn’t include about worrying if she was contained.  

Ash had pulled a thermal undershirt on over that, and it clung to her body – except for her stomach. That was where it was a little too loose, a little too baggy, but Ash was much too thin as it was, even with the weight she’d gained eating so well at the Sanctuary.

On top of that was a plain t-shirt, in an acid-wash gray fabric. It was simple, but Ash was warm under the thermal, and that was good enough. Her shirt was a heavier material, but it was loose, and Ash had taken a rubber band to tie the hem, making it fit closer to her torso.

The men had their jackets, their lighter weight coats. One of the others in a different SUV was wearing a flannel. Others had hoodies. And, of course, Negan had his leather jacket.

Ash, in comparison, looked as if she would be cold, but she wasn’t, not really, and she knew she’d work up a sweat the moment she got going, the moment the adrenaline kicked in. She didn’t need the layers, especially if they could get caught on something or grabbed by one of the undead.

As she sat, in a t-shirt and her jeans, she had ease of access to the weapons strapped down to her body.

Finally, _finally_ , Ash had her knives returned to her, and they sat in holsters attached to the sturdy belt that rested on her hips. She was ecstatic to have them back, but Ash didn’t let it show. She couldn’t, however, stop herself from fiddling with the hilts of each knife as she sat in place, watching the nondescript forest pass by.

There was also a pistol, a .9mm with minimal bite, nestled in another holster wrapped around her thigh, buckled in place, attached to her belt.

Negan had been watching her as she strapped everything on, joining the Saviors for the first time in what could easily be described as a war room.

There were maps of the surrounding states – Virginia, West Virginia, DC (with a giant X over it), Maryland, Delaware – with details about other settlements, what sections to avoid, where outposts were located, at what point the walkie talkies could no longer reach.

Two gun safes were located in this room, and that was where Ash had been handed her pistol from. She still wasn’t entirely sure where the armory was, but the others already had their weapons – primary and secondary – and someone had brought her a backup magazine for her pistol as well as her two knives.

As Ash had knelt, wrapping a shoe string around her right ankle and a piece of twine around her left, carefully making sure she had her already-tight-legged jeans close to her legs while also giving herself tools in case she’d need them, she tried to focus on the tiniest of the details of the conversations she could catch, but there was too much going on.

When she stood, she noticed Negan watching her, and she tucked her loose hair behind her ears, briefly meeting his gaze before picking up the spare magazine. For a moment, she stared at it, trying to figure out where to stash it.

When that moment passed, Ash wondered if putting on a jacket would have been preferable, at least for the storage of the magazine. After she vetoed that idea, Ash debated turning to Negan and saying she didn’t need it, but that was stupid. She needed to be safe, and safe meant having a gun with extra ammo.

“I can give you an idea where to put that, doll,” Negan purred, a little too close for comfort, and Ash had to resist the urge to turn and hit him with said magazine.

She also had to resist the urge to tell Negan to shove it up his own ass.

“I fail to see the practicality in that,” she said, tone flat.

After a moment, Ash looked down at her pants, remembering that her pockets had zippers, and she unzipped the one on the left – the easiest to access – and slid the magazine inside.

Back in the truck cab, settling into her body and out of the memory, Ash realized something.

“I wonder if this will get my ass kicked, but you failed to do proper research,” Ash said, cutting off whatever Will was saying to Simon.

“What are you talking about?” Simon asked from behind her as Negan turned down the CD of the classic rock music they were listening to.

“No one asked if I knew how to shoot a gun before it was handed to me,” she replied, watching as a duo of geeks turned in their direction and started towards the caravan. “Seems reckless.”

“You don’t know how to shoot?” Negan asked, incredulous. “Shit, pumpkin, in this world, that ain’t a choice.”

“I didn’t say I didn’t know how to shoot,” Ash countered, dropping her left foot off the dash when the magazine digging into her thigh started getting unbearable. “I just said you shoulda made sure first.”

There was silence in the cab of the truck while the information was digested. In Ash’s mind, she was being perfectly reasonable. Failure to check for the basics was going to get someone killed.

“I’m from Texas,” she went on, catching the end of her ponytail from behind her back and draping it over her left shoulder, trying to keep the brand on her neck blocked from view. “We come out of the womb knowing how to shoot.”

“Shit, boss, no one said the new chick was fuckin’ funny!” Will burst out laughing, clapping a hand to his thigh.

Simon was laughing too, his sound more a wheeze compared to Will’s, like a man who’d been smoking for far too long.

Then there was Negan. The overly loud man with a laugh that reminded Ash of windows rattling when trains barreled by: impossible to ignore, all-consuming, and in your face.

Ash shrank into her seat while the men laughed at what hadn’t been intended to be such a funny joke. In her mind, she just meant to state the obvious about how, before the end, the majority of Texans were very gung-ho about their love of firearms.

“For such a silent girl, you sure can crack a good one,” Simon praised, his large hand clapping her shoulder from over the seat.

She stiffened, but Simon didn’t notice as he squeezed the joint, his laughter settling.

“Goddamn, peaches, your wit is as sharp as those knives.”

“It wasn’t that funny,” Ash muttered, slouching down in her seat.

As she did so, her shirt and thermal pulled up, sticking to the leather, and Negan’s face dropped from boisterous laughter and amusement to one of seriousness. Negan stopped laughing as he looked at her side, eyes darting back and forth from the road.

“What is it, boss?” Will asked as Ash pulled her shirts down, swallowing thickly.

Maybe he hadn’t seen, maybe it was something else.

No, she wasn’t going to get that lucky. That wasn’t how Ash’s life worked. Her life was too much of a cosmic joke for her scars along her back and sides and even her ribs to remain hidden for the remainder of her time at the Sanctuary – and she wasn’t going to stay.

She couldn’t.

The icy grip of fear slithered around Ash’s heart and down through her veins. It was mad enough Negan had insisted on seeing Ash’s brand on her chest, but the idea of Negan seeing everything – of starting to demand backstories and wearing her down – was more than Ash could stomach.

He couldn’t know.

Beyond that, Ash wasn’t willing to go down the road of answers, of reliving everything that had gone wrong for her.

Some secrets were meant to stay buried.

“Thought I saw something,” Negan answered. “Simon, what’s our ETA?”

“Twenty minutes.”

“Good! I don’t know about you fucks, but I’m _ready_ to get into that base.”

 

Ash stepped out of the truck, landing gently on the dirt. They’d parked about five-hundred feet from the fence surrounding the army base, close enough that they, the living, were able to monitor the geeks inside the intact fence.

All around, the Saviors were gathering, checking over their guns, the straps on holsters connected to their bodies, and Ash checked the zipper on her pants, easily opening and closing it multiple times before she reached under her t-shirt and tucked her thermal into the high waistband of her jeans.

“Gonna be warm enough?” Simon asked as he looked over at her. “Ain’t got much meat on your bones.”

Ash nodded, pulling the rubber band off her t-shirt to tighten it once more.

“Alright, shitheads, listen up,” Negan ordered, and Ash drew nearer, staying near the back. Her hearing was fine, and not having to look at anyone’s face was more than ideal. “Echo Outpost has been watching this place for a long ass time, and we are finally ready to crack this baby open like an egg.”

He wasn’t the most eloquent speech-giver, though Ash could see the people around her hanging on his every word. Maybe Ash was jaded, having spent so long reading – classis, sci-fi, fantasy, anything she could get her hands on.

“You’ve each been assigned sectors, different parts of the base to search,” he went on. “I seriously _doubt_ I need to go back over that, but as you may have noticed – there’s a little _deadie_ problem blocking our way inside. That’s why I brought a monkey.”

When Negan didn’t continue, Ash looked up. They were all staring at her, like they were expecting her to end whatever outbreak was causing the dead to rise without ceasing brain activity. Her eyes went wide, and she opened her mouth to say something.

“Ash, tell me, Cinderella, how are you going to make it over the fence?”

The color drained from Ash’s face at the mention of that name. Hopefully, they’d buy that she was just freaked out by being put on the spot. After all, she was already silent more often than not.

“I want ideas.”

Ash swallowed, looking around. She took a moment, trying not to get flustered.

“Moving a truck wouldn’t be high enough to get over the barbed wire,” she said, stepping back as she looked around. “It’s possible that we could lure the geeks to series of points – not one, or that fence’ll come on down – and if there’s an opening, we could cut the fence.”

She paused briefly.

“That only works if there’s something to stitch it back together.”

Ash looked up, and, for the first time in a very long time, Ash grinned in full.

Things were turning up in her favor, and she could already see this working.

“I’m gonna need a boost.”

 

One of the Saviors – a fat man Ash hadn’t caught the name of – lowered himself to his hands and knees with his side pressed against the thick trunk of an oak tree. Its branches, while thinner by that point, arched over the fence, above the barbed wire curling over the top.

“That’s a hell of a jump,” Negan whistled. “You up for that?”

“The fall was higher in the pharmacy,” Ash countered, glaring over at him as she was handed a pair of fingerless gloves one of the few women in the group. “You wanted a monkey.”

He grinned, showing off his pearly white teeth. It was still absurd to Ash how _white_ they were.

“ _Dance_ , monkey.”

Ash kicked off the dirt from the underside of her boots before she pulled the gloves on, pulling the Velcro straps tight. After a moment, with the expectations of many weighing on her, Ash climbed onto the large man’s back, one foot on his shoulders, the other along his lower back.

He grunted slightly with the pressure along his joints, but the moment Ash caught the above branch, she pulled herself up, walking along the tree trunk until she was able to hook her leg over the joint, and Ash swung herself over, sitting up.

That had been the easy part.

Ash still needed to shimmy along to the end of the branch and hop down, hopefully not getting taken apart by any geeks when she landed. She still needed to make her way back to the gate so she could let the trucks into the base.

For a moment, as Ash drew up her ankles behind her, on top of the branch she was sitting on, she wondered if this was a game to Negan – a way to kill her in the most taunting, grueling way he could imagine. After all, he was cruel man, even when he showed moment of semi-decency, so why wouldn’t he devise the most complex, torturous way he could imagine to take her out?

Ash grit her teeth, her lips pulling back in a snarl. Hand over hand, she crawled towards the fence, movements slow and precise, doing her best not to send herself plummeting to the ground.

Spread out on either side of her – more to the right than to the left – groups of Saviors were drawing away the geeks, keeping them away from the fence, drawing them away from where Ash was going to land. So far, all was going according to plan, but Ash knew better than to get complacent.

Complacency was another thing that was dangerous. Just like scars, just like weaknesses.

Before Ash went too far, she paused, surveying the ground below her. She’d land on dirt, which was better than concrete, but there were still three geeks she’d have to contend with. Three she could do. She’d dealt with worse with less. Besides, she had backup this time – backup with guns.

Ash pulled her right knife from her holster, and she put the blade between her teeth, biting down. She’d done this before, and while it wasn’t the smartest, she’d need both hands to swing herself down into the base.

Squatting on the branch, Ash gripped it in both hands, flexing her grip. Looking around once more, Ash let out two short whistles, the sound mutilated around the blade, and then, without waiting, she dropped.

Ash swung herself over the barbed wire fence, twisting mid-air to land with her back to the fence. As she plummeted, stomach rising to her throat, Ash pulled her knife from her mouth, handle in her grip, careful to avoid giving herself a new smile.

When she landed in a crouch, there was pain, but it wasn’t the kind that made her want to pass out or that sent her to the ground. Rising from her crouch, drawing her second knife, Ash turned her attention to the nearest geek.

Its back was to her, not paying attention to the young woman. With ease, Ash was able to dispatch it, her knife sinking into the base of its skull, crunching through bone.

A second one was almost on her, and Ash danced out of its grip, ducking and twirling before she stuck a knife in the front of its skull, the bone cracking beneath her powerful strike, fueled by a month of eating properly.

Looking back at the third one, it was meandering towards her, and Ash, rather than leave loose ends, approached it, her stride long, powerful, before knocking it to the ground with a blow from her shoulder. She knelt, one boot on its chest, and pierced what would have been the temporal section of what would have been the brain once upon a time.

When her three geeks were out, Ash turned to look back at where Negan and the few others hand been standing. She made eye contact with Negan – the kind that would normally have Ash puking – but there was something in his gaze that made her look: lust.

She’d seen lust before – it wasn’t rare – but it was rarely directed at her. Not without pain.

Still, she didn’t have time to acknowledge it, and Ash broke out into a jog, her knives still in her hands, as she made her way to the gate, between Negan’s group and the one meant to pull away geeks from the gate.

There was a pile of the biting corpses that had been dispatched by the time Ash pulled to a stop, and she tucked her knives into their sheaths as she pulled out a set of lockpicking tools. Kneeling, Ash set to work on this.

The lock – a heavy thing – faced inwards. It was positioned so that bolt cutters wouldn’t reach through the gate, and she was able to stick each pin inside, tossing her ponytail over her right shoulder, out of the way, so the sun shown down without having to fight through her black hair to give light to the situation.

She could smell the shampoo from the shower she’d had the day before. Hell, she could smell the rot of the undead on the breeze that blew towards her through the woods, bringing with it the crisp air of autumn turning to winter, the faint dampness of leaves decaying in heaps.

One of the Saviors on the other end of the fence whistled, low and warning, and Ash looked over her shoulder to see a geek shambling towards her in army-issued camo. The walking, biting, empty corpse was wearing a bulletproof vest and a helmet.

“Shit,” Ash hissed, looking down at the tools in her hands.

She’d have to get close to take out the geek, and it was, by her inaccurate calculations, going to be on her within fifteen seconds.

Ash dropped the picks in her hands, drawing out her two knives. That geek was too close to her liking, and Ash was now _mad_. She’d gotten the first pin to disengage from the lock, but she’d had to drop it lest she get dead.

_Dance, monkey._

Negan’s words flitted through her mind as Ash lowered herself, bending her knees and dropping her center of gravity.

“Alright, bitch, let’s tango,” she murmured.

In what she was sure she’d get yelled at for later, and what Ash could only describe as a moment of stupidity, she rushed the geek instead of letting it come towards her.

It was snarling, snapping from under its helmet and its arms reached out towards Ash, ready to grab any part of her it could with its gloved hands. If it was possible for these things to starve, this one surely was by the way it bit the air at her.

Ash dove at the ground, rolling over her shoulder to knock out the legs of the geek. Anger was coursing through her, shoving aside the normal game plan. Generally, Ash let them come to her, and she didn’t get fancy with her take downs, but, as Negan’s wolf-like grin sat in the back of her mind, the way he taunted her in the pharmacy replayed – Ash didn’t think so logically.

From below, the biting corpse dressed in military camo tried to grab Ash’s ankle, and she drew back, skittering back in her crouched position, bouncing on the balls of her feet.

The helmet had skewed the moment the geek had hit the ground, and the majority of its face, along with the side of its skull, was hidden now, and Ash was going to have to get close to stab it.

Already, the geek was back on its feet, snarling behind its newfound mask.

“Shoulda stayed in the goddamn Tower,” Ash growled.

Her words hit her own sore spot, cold and callous, and Ash stood. Movement caught her attention, and she looked up to find Negan, Simon, and the others were outside of the gate now. Negan, his fingers gripping the chain link, looked like he was about to lose his mind with rage.

There came an emptiness with the single word at the end of Ash’s sentence, and she stepped back from the geek, her grip on the knives loosening.

“Ash!” Negan bellowed.

The geek, attracted more to noise than scent, turned towards the outburst, and Ash was renewed again, springing on the geek. As the pair fell to the ground, Ash sunk a knife into the base of its skull, rolling off just as they hit the ground.

“I had it!” she snapped at Negan, getting up from her position on the ground.

Almost instantly, Ash regretted her decision to snap at him.

His lips were pulled back, revealing sharp teeth that were pressed together. His brows were darting down, but it was his _eyes_ that made Ash want to run and live in the base for the rest of her life. In them, replacing the lust she’d last seen, was a rage so impossible to mask, a rage that sent terror down her spine, that Ash could do nothing more than look at the ground, sheathing her knives.

Ash approached the gate, falling to her knees to take up the picks she’d been working with before the geek had distracted her.

“That was incredibly fucking stupid,” Negan spit down at her as she inserted the small tools into the lock once more, easily pricking the first tumbler into place.

“Okay,” Ash shrugged, noncommittal.

The highs and lows of the first fifteen minutes of this stupid expedition were already too much for her, and if she wasn’t careful, she’d detach to the point where she got reckless, too distracted to be useful to anyone – including herself.

“I need you in one piece,” he snarled out, shaking the chain link. “What are you, fucking suicidal? God, that was fucking insane! Goddamn roamer coulda torn you to shreds. Fuck, Ash, that’s so goddamn reckless.”

By now, the rest of the Saviors had convened around the gate, watching as Negan tore into Ash.

“I wouldn’t have done it if I couldn’t handle it,” Ash muttered, feeling the second tumbler engage. Halfway there.

Once more, Ash flipped her ponytail over her right shoulder, trying to capture as much light over her hands as possible. Above her, she heard the metal groan, and she looked up, finding Negan staring down at her from his full height.

Ash started to snap at him, to tell him to keep his dirty thoughts to himself, but instead she went back to her work, knowing they had a finite amount of sunlight left.

 _It doesn’t matter_ , she told herself. _You’re leaving as soon as possible anyway._

And while that may be true, she still didn’t need to let Negan get too close – or anyone for that matter.

When people got close – emotionally or physically – they asked questions. They wanted to know details about where others had been before they’d arrived at the Sanctuary but after the world had ended. They wanted to know details about _the pharmacy_ that Negan referenced around her. Negan himself still wanted to know about the scars on her arms and the brand on her chest – and those weren’t half of the marks on her body.

Details were scars, and scars were weaknesses, and weaknesses got you killed.

The final pin in the lock clicked, and Ash opened it, tucking the tools into the same pocket as her spare magazine before she stood up in a single, fluid motion and started to open the gate.

Before she could finish, two of the Saviors were taking over, and Ash stood to the side, withdrawing her knives, ready for further instruction. She didn’t know her sector, didn’t know her group or squadron. She’d been told to _dance, monkey_ , and that was what Ash had done, despite seething over it for the last six or seven minutes.

The Saviors brought their vehicles in, but Negan strode up to Ash, grabbing her by the bicep, his large hand squeezing. She had to resist skewering him.

“Don’t touch me,” she hissed. “Don’t you _fucking_ touch me!”

Negan, to her surprise, dropped his grip on her.

“I fucking meant it when I said you better not do anything so reckless again, Ash,” he snapped, getting in her face. Ash straightened, holding her head up high. “You’re still a fuckin’ probie with me, and I will throw you on Easy Street if you disobey me one more time.”

Ash swallowed, eyes darting to the ground once before coming back up to his.

“N-not a g-g-god-goddamn _wh-whore_ ,” she stammered out, clenching her teeth on the last word.

“What are you-?”

Before Negan could investigate further, Simon joined them, clapping Negan on the shoulder.

“Everyone’s ready, boss,” he said. He nodded at Ash. “Nice moves, kid.”

Ash nodded in return. He didn’t need more. The exchange itself was over before it happened.

“Alright, let’s move,” Negan said. “Ash, you’re with me.”

_Goddammit._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi, guys, so I'm actually on chapter thirteen, but, as you can see, I've only posted five. If y'all want more frequent updates, let me know. Even if just one person responds, that'll be what I do.


	6. Gunpowder and Blood

Negan insisted that Ash have the .9mm out while he used a crowbar to open a locked door to the building he had assigned himself. Something about how Ash wouldn’t be able to be fully reliable with just knives.

His bat was hooked to a small cable attached to his left hip while a .44 Magnum – a goddamn beast of a gun – was strapped to his right thigh, a hunting knife holstered to his left thigh. He was an imposing figure in a leather jacket and motorcycle boots, his baseball bat dripping with the necrotic blood of the undead.

Popping the crowbar into the jam next to the lock, Negan looked back at Ash, waiting for her acknowledgement. She gave a curt nod, flicking off the safety on the .9mm in her hands, her finger itching to pull the trigger.

For a moment, her arm still burning from where Negan had grabbed her, Ash debated blowing his head off, sending a bullet to blast through his face, ruin the feature he seemed so damn proud of. It would end in her death, sure, but was that really a bad thing?

Negan pressed on the crowbar, leather straining across his refined shoulders – something Ash wished she didn’t notice. The door released after a moment, the wood the military had used groaning, splintering, and Negan pulled away.

Sunlight filtered into the entry room, soft, almost effervescent compared to the outdoors Ash and Negan still stood in, beating down on their backs. When Ash didn’t see anything, or hear anything, she slid in, turning to the side to look behind the door.

“Clear,” she muttered, lowering her gun, pulling her finger away from the trigger.

Negan strode in behind her, massive in the small space, and Ash moved to the side, towards a different door, as the leader shut the open door. It was able to shut once more, and he locked it, securing the deadbolt and preventing any geeks from pushing their way inside.

“Take the top floor, pumpkin,” Negan instructed, unbuckling the strap securing his gun for easy access.

_Stop calling me that._

Ash huffed, puffing out her cheeks, before she turned towards the set of stairs just inside the door. Resituating her weapons – putting the gun away and drawing her knives – Ash took a steadying breath.

It wasn’t like she was unused to slashing and hacking her way through geeks that outnumbered her ten-to-one. She’d done that before. Twice. But it still sucked. There was no getting used to the feeling of certain death, of adrenaline coursing through her veins while constantly feeling the undead grappling for her flesh, to bite into her.

Before Negan could say anything – and he would, she knew that – Ash climbed the stairs, pressing her back to the wall in order to have a better vantage point. She could do this. She had to.

Above her, a plank of wood groaned, and Ash’s head shot up, backwards, ponytail dipping down between her shoulder blades, along her spine. At the minimum, she had at least one geek to contend with. Likely more.

Today was already proving not to be her day, and Ash was willing to bet there was more than one up there.

Ash paused, at the point in the stairs where they turned, and her eyes fluttered shut. She took a breath, and, then, Ash bounded up the stairs with the silence of a hunter, the soles of her boots not even squeaking.

At the top, Ash steadied herself, surveying the empty hall. There were five doors on the upper floor – four going down the hall and one at the end, opposite of where Ash stood. This was the only door shut. Something about it made Ash’s skin crawl.

Maybe it was the sweat sticking to her arms, the way the thermal rubbed up and down her skin, catching around the fine hairs. Maybe it was the way the chilly autumn air stung her lungs, felt like she was swallowing shards of glass. Maybe it was being alone – truly _alone_ with such a vile man.

Maybe it was more than just the door that made her skin crawl.

Ash pressed up against the wall outside of the first door. While she might not be able to see into it, she could hear things, listen for any noise from the room behind her. Across from her, she saw nothing, but behind her, she could hear something snapping its teeth.

 

When Ash cleared the four open rooms on the upper level, dropping six geeks in total, she had blood on her t-shirt, and the blades of her knives were dripping. Her heart was pounding out its own tempo, so rapid, so painful, that Ash had doubled over the last corpse, panting, coughing, trying not to puke.

She couldn’t shake the feeling of her skin crawling.

She tried to chalk it up to adrenaline.

She still couldn’t.

Ash stood in front of the last door, wiping her knives off on her already-bloody shirt hem before tucking them into her holsters, and she pulled out her nine mil. So far, she hadn’t needed to fire a single shot, but that wasn’t always a guarantee. Nothing was a guarantee anymore.

Not really.

At least with the dead.

Ash wrapped her fingerless gloved left hand around the doorknob, gun held at her shoulder. Guns weren’t her expertise. She needed the height, needed the line of sight. Needed the reassurance that she’d hit the head of her target.

It wasn’t locked, and Ash pushed it open, dancing back a step as the door fell open. It bounced against the door with a soft clang, and Ash regretted that sound for a moment. A moment that ended when nothing snarled at her and came shambling out from the corners.

Warily, Ash stepped into the room, twisting her head to see into each side of the room as she brought her left hand up to hold her right wrist, balancing and reinforcing her grip.

She didn’t see anyone, so maybe whoever had been the last one to leave the room Ash now stood in the center of had closed the door out of habit. After all, habits died hard. Just ask Ash.

Wincing to herself, she turned towards what looked like a small chest of drawers.

Ash didn’t put her gun away, but she did lower it. As she began to open the first drawer, the hair on the back of her neck rose on end, and Ash stiffened, freezing in place.

_But she’d checked._

Did she?

Well, sorta…

A hand wrapped around Ash’s mouth, and she screamed into it, eyes wide. Her heart, which hadn’t fallen back to a normal rate yet, was back to doing double time. Someone had her and judging by the warmth of their hand – they were alive.

They threw her back, and Ash’s head struck the hardwood floor. Her gun skittered across the floor as stars swam through Ash’s vision, unable to focus on what was happening.

_Shit._

Someone was on top of her, a fist pulling down the collar of Ash’s t-shirt and thermal.

Blinking hard, Ash was able to clear the majority of the constellations across her field of vision, and the young woman looked up at who was on top of her, tracing the brand on her chest.

She expected to scream. Really, she did. But her body froze, tensed up, and Ash couldn’t make herself do anything other than gape at the man sitting across her hips, his thumb caressing the _Z_ over her heart.

He’d gotten worse for wear since she’d last seen him, and there was a scar under his right eye, a crescent moon similar to the couple dozen or so on each of Ash’s palms. His hairline was receding, his teeth a little rottener than previously – and a canine was missing now.

“I missed you, Cinderella,” he purred, leaning down to sniff her hair, releasing the collar of her shirts to pull her ponytail into his grasp. “I wonder how much credit bringin’ you back’ll get me from Z.”

“No,” Ash whispered, looking towards the doorway.

Negan was still out there.

_No, wait._

That man had brought her here, gotten her alone. It was all a ruse. This was the plan all along. He’d kept Quinton away from Ash, made sure she didn’t know they were working together. He was as much the enemy as Quinton was, just as big an asshole as Z. An utter demon.

They all needed to die.

Ash would die first, though. The men would make sure of it.

Quinton wrapped Ash’s ponytail around his fist and yanked her upwards.

“Be a good girl, Cinderella,” he leered, his eyes pools of hatred and tar. “After all, it’d be a shame to shove your pretty face in coals.”

“No,” she repeated, a little louder, a little more forceful.

If there was any luck left in the universe for her, maybe Negan had gotten bit and his walking corpse was on its way up the stairs. If she could just yell a little louder, that Negan-geek would be attracted, eat them both.

“Don’t be a fucking cunt,” Quinton hissed.

He reached between them, plucking Ash’s knives from the holsters. One at a time, he flung them through the air, out the door. Ash could hear them toppling down the stairs, smacking the wall at the mid-point landing, and she fought the urge to whimper, to show fear.

It was bad enough Quinton had gotten rid of her gun when he’d thrown her to the ground, now she was missing the one weapon she was actually good with.

Her head was spinning, vision shifting in and out of focus, but she could still see the grin widen on Quinton’s face before he threw her back to the ground, grabbing a shoulder and forcing Ash around. Black spots were blooming around the edges of her eyes, and the cherry wood now seemed like someone had taken multiple matches to the same spots, making them bigger and bigger until they were splotches.

“Don’t,” she murmured, trying to fight around the urge to pass out.

“Don’t,” Quinton mocked, his voice high-pitched. “Just as pathetic as always, Cinders. Betcha got some scars your group would never understand, huh? Fuckin’ freak.”

Something cold ran up Ash’s back, biting through the material of her shirt and thermal, and the flayed edges fell on the ground on either side of her.

“Ooh, forgot about when Freddy dumped those embers on your back,” Quinton chuckled, pricking the tip of what had to be a knife into the center of several of the scars along her spine. “Let’s make some memories, baby.”

Ash whimpered, tears pricking her eyes. She tried to tell herself it was only from pain, that she wasn’t afraid and that she could handle whatever it was Quinton threw at her, but that simply wasn’t true. Ash was very much so afraid.

She was terrified.

Something biting sliced down her back, around her side, and Ash let out the start of a scream before cutting herself off as she bit the inside of her cheek.

That knife was back, and Quinton was going to make sure he made up for lost time.

Before Ash could even catch her breath, Quinton drove his blade down once more, though this time it was much deeper, and Ash felt herself choking on the metallic scent of her own blood.

“Stop!” she begged, voice raising in pitch. “Please!”

“Oh, you’re gonna have to try a lot harder than that!” Quinton fired right back, his belly-laugh vibrating in Ash’s hips and thighs. “You’ve got some fuckin’ time to make up for, bitch!”

Another cut and then another.

Ash’s head felt empty and full all at once, like she was swimming through expired milk. He hadn’t even reached double digits yet, but Quinton had gotten much more accurate and severe with his cuts.

She was barely hanging on, ready to pass out. Maybe she could blame it on having her head thrown to the ground twice within short succession as the chocolate syrup of this shitty sundae being blood loss and pain that sucked away her breath, but Ash knew if she couldn’t get away from Quinton, she’d be back in the Tower before the day was over.

Maybe even before nightfall.

Ash looked around without moving her head. Even just moving her eyes sent new spots of inky black and stabbing light shooting across her field of vision, but this wasn’t the time to give into the pain. No, this was the time to fight it. To make it her bitch.

She could see her .9mm pistol not far off – or maybe it was; her vision kept focusing weird – and Ash slid her left hand towards it. Before she could move her hand more than a few inches, Quinton drove the tip of his knife into the empty space between Ash’s ribs, right where she’d been kicked by Clinton or Alexander – whichever dick it was.

Ash didn’t filter this scream, and when Quinton removed the blade from her skin, the blood gushed over her bare back, sticky, hot. Vital. Dizzying.

She’d lost count of how many cuts Quinton had inflicted in the short period of time they’d been reintroduced. She didn’t even notice the bootsteps barreling towards them.

What Ash noticed was the seven or eight shots burst through the small room and the weight being lifted off her hips and buttock.

She flung herself onto her back, arching upwards at the insurmountable pain that bit across her skin and into the muscle, and Ash settled back onto her elbows.

Next to her, the skull and most of the neck of Quinton had been largely obliterated by a high-caliber bullet at close range. Her chest heaved, from trying to breathe, from being unable to breathe, from shock, from fear.

Her head snapped to the side, and she found Negan standing in the doorway, his teeth barred, a wisp of smoke curling upwards from the barrel of his gun. Eight bullet casings lay at his feet, the product of his shots.

“Fuck,” Ash mumbled, blood rolling down her back from the plethora of cuts. “Oh, fuck.”

The room was spinning, Negan was nothing more than a blur of black. She could smell gunpowder and blood. Was she going to puke or was that how she always felt? Nothing was right. Nothing was right. Nothing was right.

Ash collapsed on her left side, the furthest from the cuts as she could be, and she stared up at Negan, eyelids heavy.

He seemed to remember she existed then, and Negan came across the room, kneeling at Ash’s side. His bat, Lucille, thudded on the ground before he did, but Ash didn’t even notice. He was pulling off his leather gloves, but Ash was hardly focused on that. All she could see was the buckle of the strap of his jacket. It had blood on it.

Geek blood.

“Ash, hey, look at me,” Negan commanded above her.

One of his large hands touched her bare side, and Ash was flung back into her body, scrambling backwards.

“Don’t fucking touch me!” she screamed. “You don’t get to fucking – no!”

“Kid, I don’t know what the hell is goin’ on, but I need to patch those up and get you back to Carson, or you’re gonna bleed out – and quick.”

Ash whimpered, arms giving out, and she was on the hardwood once more.

“Not a fucking pin cushion,” she murmured.

Her eyes were so heavy. Everything was so heavy. Her back was wet, sticky, hot. So hot. Or was that her face? It didn’t matter. Ash closed her eyes. It didn’t matter.

Nothing mattered.

Maybe she’d finally get some sleep.


	7. Peaches

Someone was carrying her, and they were running. Hands were pressed into her back, something trapped between her skin and theirs. It was sticking to her back, threatening to peel off, and when the person shifted her, it did partially, pain blooming.

“Carson!” someone bellowed.

A door was kicked open, banging against the wall.

“What happened?”

Was that Carson? Huh, she couldn’t tell. Everything had a murky quality to it, like she was underwater. And why did her head feel like it was encased in lead?

God, her head hurt.

There was a little groan somewhere in the black void Ash floated in. It was too loud but too quiet all at once. Like it wasn’t even in the same realm as wherever she was.

“She’s comin’ around, boss,” another voice observed.

“Good.”

_Was that Carson?_

Shit, nothing seemed right. Where was she? Why did her head hurt so bad?

Something cold pricked the inside of Ash’s arm, and her chest tightened inside the black sea she drifted in. Fear and adrenaline coursed through her, and Ash could hear herself – but almost like she was observing someone else – whimper.

_She whimpered._

“Son of a whore! Why’s she doing that?”

“Negan, I need you to step back so I can start working on the cuts. I need to stop the bleeding more than anything. She’ll come around on her own.”

Something cold was spreading out from her inner elbow, mixing with her blood. That, combined with the adrenaline and fear, was stirring her up from the depths of whatever hibernation world she was buried in.

When some sort of liquid – sharp, stinging – was swiped over her back (when did she get on her stomach?), Ash was flung to the forefront of her consciousness.

At first, she wasn’t sure she’d opened her eyes because she could only see piercing white light, but, quickly, Ash realized she was in Carson’s little hospital, now transformed into a surgical suite while she’d been out of it, barely registering even half of what was going on.

She was on her stomach, head turned to the side, and she could see a bloody, almost grotesque, Negan standing at the counter, scrubbing his hands. He was angled to where he could still easily see what was happening with her, but Ash had just an easy view of him.

Ash could also hear something beep, but surely, they wouldn’t hook up a heart monitor to her while she was on her belly? Above her, behind her – whichever – Carson was barking orders about something that wasn’t quite processing yet.

A hand touched her hip, and Ash, for lack of a better word, screamed.

The room erupted in chaos.

Negan spun around from the sink he was at, water spraying across the room, but he managed to shut off the faucet – _waste not want not._ His hazel eyes were wide, his face, painted with a splatter of blood, was morphed into shock, surprise.

Whoever had touched her yanked their hand back like they’d been burned, and someone else startled, knocking back a tray that rolled until it bounced against a wall.

“Don’t – don’t touch me!” Ash insisted, gasping for air.

Oh, god, she couldn’t breathe. It didn’t matter how many mouthfuls of air she gulped down, none of it was effective. It was like her lungs had gone on strike and told her to find different body parts to do their jobs. They were done, refusing to work, and they weren’t processing any air she tried to take in.

Not being able to breathe only made the pounding in her head that much worse.

“Give her something!” Negan shouted at the doctor.

“I can’t risk her going back under with a concussion,” Carson replied in a measured voice. “She could die.”

“She can’t-” Negan cut himself off, looking down at the young thing that could barely breathe, lying on the operating table, trying to contract around herself. Ash was bordering on hysterical now. “What the sweet shit is happening, Carson?”

“She’s hyperventilating, likely anxiety at being touched,” he explained. “Dwight – get the Diazepam – for injections, _not_ the pills – and a sterile hypodermic needle. Go! Don’t just stand there!”

Ash tried to pick herself up off the table, her shoulders and arms shaking. If she could just get away from the loud, shouting men, the other man she didn’t trust, then maybe she’d be able to calm down. If she could lock herself in a supply closet somewhere, she’d be able to get her shit together. Surely.

Before Ash could get any further, Negan was on his knees in front of her, lifting his hands like he wanted to touch her, but when Ash flinched away, he dropped them in his lap.

“Alright, doll, listen, you gotta lay back down,” he said, nearly pleading with her. “C’mon your back is in goddamn ribbons, and it’s a fuckin’ order that you can’t get up.”

Ash whimpered again, her right shoulder giving out. In a robotic manner, she lowered herself, joints protesting. The _flight_ in flight or fight was still strong, begging to overtake the rationality in her oxygen-deprived and pain-riddled brain.

Orders, though, were something Ash knew better than to go against. Orders were something that you could get killed for disobeying.

Something was jabbed into Ash’s left arm, and she jerked her head around to find a needle in her arm, Carson pressing down as a clear liquid slid into her veins. It didn’t take immediate effect, but that was to be expected.

“Look at me, kid.”

Ash pulled her gaze away from the needle being pulled from her arm, a small square of gauze pressing over the needle-prick. Negan’s dark eyes were dilated, and his breathing was heavy. Blood had coated his jacket – the chest, his sleeves, staining the silver accoutrements. His hands were bright pink.

“Good girl,” he praised.

Under normal circumstances, when Ash didn’t feel like she was turning to slime, she’d glare at him. She wasn’t a dog or a servant. She wasn’t his kid. This wasn’t some sort of behavior modification program.

However, Ash could barely focus on him. Everything had a fuzzy quality to it.

Blinking hard, she tried again to focus better on Negan, finding what was clearly concern on his weathered features. As she looked at him, Ash felt her stomach roll, and she dropped her head to the table, pressing her forehead to the edge of the cool metal.

“I feel sick,” she murmured, voice hoarse.

“You lost a shit load of blood,” he countered. “Fuck, look at my jeans. Doubt these stains are coming out.”

Ash peaked up over the edge of the table, finding that, indeed, his jeans were disgusting. From mid-shin to his upper thighs, the dark blue denim was soaked through with blood, and it was drying, leaving the denim crunchy, thick, immobile.

“That was – me. That was _in_ me.”

Negan looked down at his jeans before he reached again for Ash. She jerked, ducking her head away from him. Her heartbeat flung back up, and, behind her, Carson cursed.

“I need you to stay calm, Ash,” he ordered in a very specific and measured tone. “Can you do that?”

“Ash focus on me,” Negan instructed. “No one’s gonna hurt ya.”

So many voices were swirling around Ash’s head: Negan, the doctor, Dwight who was trying to get in a question to Carson, a man barking something to no one in particular. The pain in her head was getting so much worse as she laid there, trying to focus on anything other than the hands on her back, than whatever cold thing was prodding around in the cuts along her skin.

“Where in Texas are you from?” Negan asked.

“What?” Ash breathed out. His question didn’t make sense. Nothing made sense.

“Just tell me, cupcake,” he pressed, but his voice stayed soft – well, for Negan. The man wasn’t exactly soft in general. “C’mon. You’re tellin’ me you’d rather focus on how much you want to puke versus tell me where you’re from?”

Ash swallowed.

In the back of her mind, through the murkiness of her concussion, she could hear herself saying that giving people details made you vulnerable, and that vulnerabilities made you weak, and that weakness got you dead.

Still, though, when pressure was applied to an incision near her spine, Ash realized that Negan was right. She’d much rather try to distract herself.

“Small town between Austin and San Antonio,” she explained, trying to keep her head up. She was shaking, and she was exhausted. “It-it’s technically kind of west, like i-if you made a triangle, you’d find it.”

Negan smirked at her, sitting back on his heels.

“Gonna give me a name, doll? Might need to take a trip out there to see where my new favorite acrobat grew up.”

“Fredericksburg,” she said. “We ate a lot of peaches.”

His smirk turned to a grin, and Negan began unzipping his jacket. Ash tensed, her hands curling over the edge of the table, wanting nothing more than to pierce the inside of her palms with the stubs of her nails.

He stopped, looking up at her.

“ _No_ one’ll ever hurt ya again, kid,” he said. “Not as long as I’m around.”

“You can’t – you don’t know that,” she whispered, lowering her head again. It took too much effort to keep her head up, but the cool metal was calming against her throbbing head. “Th-they’re every-wh-where.”

Maybe she was giving away too much. The way they acted, the way Negan had shot Quinton – just the thought of him made her stomach swirl through her abdomen, like a ship caught in a storm – maybe they weren’t apart of Z’s network.

Maybe she’d gotten lucky.

Still, though, men freaked Ash out, and she was doing her best to ignore the four-to-one ratio of men to her – a broken, exhausted, prone, barely-more-than-a-girl young woman on her stomach.

“The rules stand, Ash,” Negan repeated, his voice low. The use of her name caught her attention, and she peeled her eyes up. Even that movement spiked the pain in her head. “Anyone – and I mean _anyone_ ; doesn’t matter if they’re a Savior or not – tries to touch you without permission, and they’ll meet the wrath of Lucille.”

Ash closed her eyes again. She was too tired to even swallow the terror that came with just the _idea_ of Negan and his vicious bat.

“I’m tired,” she breathed.

“Doc, can she sleep yet?” he asked Carson.

The shift in conversation pulled Ash’s focus down to her back. She could feel her skin being pulled back together, sewn shut to keep the wounds closed. It was vile, and the piercing of the needle through her back was much, much worse than Ash digging her nails into hands. There was a wet sound to accompany the blood being pushed aside, rolling over skin stretched tight across muscle and bone, and she tried not to gag over the mixed cocktail of chemical cleaners and her own blood.

“Not unless you want to risk her going into a coma,” Carson countered. “You’ll be able to sleep when we’re done, Ash. Just a little longer.”

Ash moaned.

The nausea was worse. The pain in her head was so severe, and everything was so _bright_. Every tiny movement shot a jolt of pain into her head, where she’d been thrown down on hardwood floor.

“N-Negan,” she murmured, forcing herself to reposition her head to look at her boss.

“Yeah, kid?”

Ash slid a hand off the table. It felt like lead, like she was moving concrete with the aid of an ant, but once her arm was over the lip of the table, gravity took over, and the limb swung down.

“Can I – can I-?”

Somehow, the leader of the Sanctuary understood what she wanted, and Negan slid his large, weathered hand over Ash’s thin one. His hand was warm, all-encompassing, and Ash stared at where they joined.

Her skin crawled in a way, not severely, like it sometimes did, but she did appreciate the distraction.

“I’m tired,” she repeated.


	8. Over-Muscled, Testosterone-Addicted Slice of Shit

Sleeping on top of stitches was impossible, even when she was wrapped in thick gauze. Carson had called in a woman with minimal medical training who’d helped Ash out of her sports bra and into a shirt that had been custom-fitted for Ash while she was being stitched up. It was long-sleeved, thankfully, with a zipper between her shoulders, but from mid-back and down it was open, allowing easy access to her back if necessary.

The same woman had also gotten Ash into the sweatpants that were in Ash’s room, the same ones from the night she’d encountered Clinton and Alexander. She hadn’t worn them since, but the woman had no way of knowing, and Ash was too tired to try to fight a pair of pants.

She hadn’t slept much during the night, dozing and trying to get comfortable, until the exhaustion had overtaken her, and Ash found herself in a fitful rest. She stewed in her own sweat, in shadowy dreams that didn’t make sense but left her staring into the dim of her hospital room, wide-eyed and panicked.

After one of these fits, and Ash startled awake, she found Carson at the counter, counting out pills. More supplies were laid out to the side – a box of latex gloves, more gauze, medical tape, some white tube of ointment or cream. There was more, but she couldn’t make it out past his form.

“Good morning, Ash,” he said over his shoulder. Carson barely turned around, but the change in Ash’s breathing must have clued the doctor in. “How are you feeling?”

“Hurt,” she murmured, voice hoarse, throat scratchy.

“I can only imagine,” Carson hummed. “I have some antibiotics and pain medication. Nothing super strong, unfortunately, but better than Tylenol.”

At that point, Ash would’ve accepted crushed up pain pills for infants. Her back throbbed with every breath she took, and every twitch she made sent stabbing pain radiating through her skull. Morphine would have been a blast, and she would’ve accepted anything to take her into that dark, hibernation-like world from before she’d been flung down on top of an operating table.

“I’ll take what I can get,” she said. “Can I – can I have some water?”

“Of course.”

Carson turned to her then, one hand cupping what Ash could only assume was her new medication and the other holding a glass cup with yellow and orange, ‘70s inspired flowers around it. Condensation clung along the glass, catching in the dim light from the lamp on the counter.

He paused a moment, setting the glass down on the table next to Ash’s bed.

“Can you sit up on your own?”

Ash knew the answer, knew he’d touch her the moment she shook her head that she couldn’t, but there was no way around it, and Ash gave him that answer. Carson closed his fist around the pills, and he slid an arm under Ash’s, pulling her upwards.

Her head swam, black clouds swirling across her field of vision as her head lulled to the side. Her torso, contracting, set off the bruising all along her back, around her side. The stitches were tugged at along her spine, but there wasn’t much she could do to fight against it other than let Carson pull her to a sitting position.

For a moment too long, Ash clung to him, trying not to fall over or throw up, but after a few deep breaths, her stomach relaxed, her vision cleared, and Ash was able to let go, sitting up on her own.

Carson passed her the water and pills without comment. He watched as she swallowed them and did her best not to chug the water. Chugging water never went well when you already wanted to vomit.

“I need to check your wounds, make sure they didn’t fester,” Carson said, taking the glass. “Do you want me to call someone to act as chaperone?”

Just about anything was better than being alone, than left vulnerable in a shirt that didn’t cover nearly enough.

“Yeah,” she answered.

Carson nodded before unclipping the walkie talkie from his belt and pressing speak, sending the request over the air. As he did so, Ash wanted nothing more than to flop back, but there was no way the pressure on the cuts along her back would allow it to be comfortable and spending another moment on her side was too much to even imagine.

“ _Be there in five._ ”

That was Negan’s voice, and while Ash wanted to protest, to ask for the quiet woman who helped her change, her emotional reserves were already too depleted. Closing her eyes, Ash took as deep a breath as the stitches, refusing to let her entire torso expand, would allow.

“Are you alright?”

“’m fine,” Ash deflected.

She couldn’t remember the last time she felt fine, and this didn’t qualify at all.

“Alright, well, I’m going to refill your water. Don’t get out of bed.”

Before Ash could blink, Carson was gone, and Ash was alone. She sighed, running a hand through her messy hair. Several spots were tangled and crusted with blood, but she didn’t have an easy way of cleaning it. Instead, Ash pulled it up onto the crown of her head and wrapped it in a bun, but when she reached for the hair band she was used to having around her wrist, it was gone.

Sighing again, Ash pressed the heels of her hands into her eyes.

“Goddamn,” she murmured.

After a moment, Ash slid off the bed, bare feet connecting with tile. Her head swam, and Ash nearly toppled to the ground as she fought to stay upright through the waves of dizziness that overtook her.

That hadn’t been part of the plan. That wasn’t supposed to happen.

Her steps towards the only chair in the room were slow, deliberate, and cold crept through her feet, into her legs. Despite this, sweat trickled down the back of her neck, getting caught in her baby hairs, soaked up.

_It’s better than blood._

Before she could get there, Ash heard the door open, and she looked up, frozen in the center of the room.

“Goddammit, kid, what the sweet shit are you doing?”

Negan was across the room before Ash could formulate an answer, and he reached out to her, his movements painfully slow, like he was forcing himself to control the strength and agility underneath the leather jacket.

“It’s gone,” she murmured, pushing her hand passed his and picking up the hem of his jacket, pulling it towards her.

There wasn’t a drop of blood anywhere on it. The silver was shining even in the low light, and the leather looked to be freshly polished, the black gleaming. Negan followed her pull, taking a step that much closer.

“Hey, if you wanted to get this close, you coulda just asked,” he chuckled. “C’mon, you need to get back in bed. Carson’s gonna have a whole herd of cows when he sees you up.”

“No,” she shook her head. “I need up.”

Negan sighed through his nose, looking around the room as Ash wavered on her feet. She was still holding onto the bottom of his jacket, stretching the material towards her, but Negan seemed almost indifferent as he homed in on the chair in the corner.

“Ah,” he said, clicking his tongue against his teeth. “Can I touch your shoulder?”

Ash shook her head again.

There were already going to be too many hands on her today, and she didn’t need Negan adding to that. Even if he was the _dear leader_ of their community and her boss.

“I can’t be u-useless.”

“You never were.”

“Ash! What are you doing out of bed?”

Ash flinched, ducking around behind Negan, trying not to fall over the long legs of her sweatpants, to go slipping and land on the floor once more, possibly killing herself in the act of striking her head.

“I gave you explicit orders about staying in bed!” Carson went on.

If Ash had been able to see herself, she’d see the color continue to leave from her face, making a hasty retreat. She was pale to an extreme, ashen, face slick with sweat. The urge to throw up was getting that much more prominent, even as the drugs worked in her system to combat the pain.

“I suggest not yellin’ at the little lady.”

Negan’s gloved hand tightened over Lucille, squeaking. Her own hand dropped its grip from his jacket, not wanting to get caught if he decided to bash in the doctor’s brains. She’d manage without a doctor – done it before, could do it again – but if Negan yanked her, even on accident, and something else got injured, she might struggle more than she needed to.

“She’s been through enough as it is,” Negan went on. “Be a goddamn gentleman, Carson.”

Carson took a measured breath the same way Ash measured the distance between her position and the chair in the corner. It wasn’t even an armchair or anything fancy. A plastic dining chair like you’d see at a church. But it meant not being in bed.

“You’re right, Negan,” Carson said. “Ash, would you please get back in bed?”

“She doesn’t want to,” Negan continued to interject.

Ash was okay with him fighting this battle for her, especially as she started a tiny shuffle to the side, toward the chair. She had her fists knotted in the sides of the pants’ leg, keeping it up, off the ground. Faceplanting wouldn’t bode well for her morning or her recovery.

Carson made some gesture that Ash didn’t catch because next Negan was scoffing, his grip on the baseball bat loosening.

“You want any help, peaches?”

She shook her head. She needed to do this on her own. She had to.

When Ash straddled the chair, her stomach and chest pressed into the back, arms gripping the legs of the chair, she watched Negan probe the corner of his mouth with his tongue before coming across the room and sinking down the wall, resting Lucille on the ground next to him.

“We’ve got some shit to talk about today, kid,” he said, running a hand through his own perfectly done hair. He chuckled as he seemed to realize the same thing as Ash. “And we gotta get you a comb, damn.”

“I’m half fuckin’ Irish,” she grumbled. “Lotta goddamn hair.”

Negan cocked an eyebrow at her, giving her one of his toothy grins.

Before he could say anything, Ash groaned, and she pressed her forehead to the metal across the top of the chair she now straddled. It helped, but not enough, and she was still sweating, too hot in sweatpants and a long-sleeved shirt, but Negan had seen enough of her arms, and she wasn’t going to give them visual confirmation that her thighs were a mess – surely the woman had run off and tattled to either Negan or Carson or both at once.

“You look like shit,” he said as Carson came over with a tray, setting it on another small table.

“Just what every woman wants to hear,” Ash scoffed.

Negan looked like he had something snarky and perverted to fire her way, but he closed his mouth, brow furrowing. Whatever it was, something he’d seen lately made him think twice about opening his mouth and spewing it out.

“These bandages will probably hurt to remove,” Carson said, cutting into the conversation. “I do apologize.”

Ash nodded, lowering her gaze to the floor.

The doctor didn’t believe in yanking the bandages off, getting the pain over with as quickly as possible. Something about making sure he didn’t catch one of the stitches. As the top layer of her skin was peeled up, Ash hissed through clenched teeth, her hands wrapping around the sides of the dining chair. There were some types of pain she never quite got used to.

Apparently, this was one of them.

“Kid, hey.”

Looking up, she found Negan holding out a glass of water.

“May not be as cold as you want, but should help cool ya off,” he said. He sighed a little, his tongue running over his top teeth. “Remind me to see if they found an ice maker at that army base, yeah? We can set it up in your room.”

“Don’t you – have the inventory?”

Ash’s breath hitched in the middle of her sentence when she pressed the wet, cool glass into the side of her neck. Negan might be talking about finding an ice maker, but it was a cold enough distraction from her sweaty, sticky skin.

“’Course I do, pumpkin, but I’ve been a little distracted since we got back,” Negan replied. “I mean, damn, new favorite Savior attacked by some jackass? Simon can handle the allocation of new supplies.”

“Allocation? What, isn’t that, like, an SAT word or something?”

Ribbing him was easier than taking his concern. Teasing him for using vocabulary that wasn’t in his normal wheelhouse was easier than letting phrases like _new favorite Savior_ and _attacked_ come too close to the surface.

Before the head Savior, with a grin stretching across the majority of his face, could retort, Carson cleared his throat.

“Negan, could I borrow a hand?”

He grunted as he stood, and Ash noticed, her face flushing, that he pushed his hips out, his shoulders dipping back. _Why_ her mind insisted on her noticing these things while she was trying to detach from the hands on her back, she’d never be able to fathom.

Negan was a prick. He was deadly, and she still didn’t have proof that he wasn’t somehow involved in what had happened to her. After all, he’d separated her from the others, gotten her to the one building that had an enemy in it, and he didn’t show up until quite late in the game.

Ash squeezed her eyes shut, pushing the glass against her windpipe, effectively cutting off her air supply.

“Van Gogh ain’t got shit on the color of your back, _ho_ -ly shit!”

Ash jerked, some of the water from her glass spilling over.

“Oh, hey – fuck, kid, it ain’t a bad thing.”

His large, warm hand touched her shoulder, radiating heat through the fabric of the modified shirt. A strangled cry escaped from Ash’s closed mouth, the young woman pressing her teeth together as hard as she could. She could feel her muscles contracting along her back, down her spine, pulling at the stitches from the various wounds.

“Whoa, Ash, Ash, loosen up, you’re going to pull your stitches if you keep that up.”

Negan came around, kneeling on the ground in front of Ash, causing her to pull back. The glass, forgotten in her desperate attempt to yank away from the leader, fell to the ground, water splashing across the ground, and he jumped back off his knees, onto the balls of his feet.

“You don’t have to be scared anymore, peaches. You don’t have to be scared.”

 

When Ash’s bandages were back in place, her stitches given the okay from the doctor, Ash was given the all-clear to have her conversation with Negan, she was brought a pair of jeans and a clean shirt, and the woman from the previous night arrived again, helping Ash change into a t-shirt and the pants.

Negan, unable to keep his damn mouth shut, watched Ash for a moment as she sat in the chair, trying to settle down from the pain in her skull and the feeling of _hands_. Yes, they were hands trying to help, to make sure the early stages of infection weren’t setting in, but they were still hands crawling over her scars, on her sides, too close to her hips and around her ribs.

“Kait mentioned you’ve got some more cuts.”

Ash looked up through the hair in her face, breathing through her mouth to hopefully prevent throwing up.

“They’re old.”

“Yeah, she said that, too.”

“It doesn’t _matter_.”

“No, pretty sure she didn’t say that one, doll.”

“It’s bad enough you expect me to just – to just lay down every goddamn fucking bad thing that’s ever happened to me! Let me have some goddamn privacy, you over-muscled, testosterone-addicted, slice of shit!”

Ash was yelling, bordering on blind rage.

She’d heard it before, but anger was often a defense mechanism for more complicated feelings at large, and this – screaming, aggravating her irritated throat – was much easier to process than seeing Quinton. A lot of things were easier than dealing with the aftermath of seeing Quinton.

Things that weren’t: explaining the scars, explaining the brands, explaining Quinton, explaining the mysterious cuts along her thighs, explaining why she jumped at loud noises, why she shied away from touch.

Negan, however, was just looking at her, curious, with a little smile pulling the corner of his mouth up.

“Testosterone-addicted? Damn, wouldn’t have picked that for an insult.”

“You’re a fucking prick.”

“Mm, tell me somethin’ I don’t know, sugar.”

Ash opened her mouth to spew more insults at him, but quickly shut it, running the heel of her hands over her thighs, along her kneecaps. That pain was bearable. That pain she could deal with. It didn’t have connotations and it wouldn’t have gotten her in trouble like stabbing her nails into her hands would have.

“It’s bad enough feeling like I have a fucking spotlight on me,” she murmured, looking at her hands. She had to resist turning them over and start picking at scabs. “I know you’re not gonna leave me alone until it’s all on the table, and then you’re gonna be just like everyone else – you’re gonna look at me like I’m a fucking freak, like I’m broken. And you’ll leave me to the wayside and just pretend I never existed.”

Ash took a shuddering breath, her hand flicking upwards, to her side, where she held her ribs, touching briefly to where the tip of the knife had dug between the bones, the padding of the gauze raised under her fingertips.

“I don’t need others looking at me like I’m already dead,” she went on. “If I wanted that, I would’ve tattled a long time ago. I’m fine with looking at myself like I’m dead, like I’m broken, because I _am._ That’s how it is – that’s how it’s been since this whole fucking world went to shit!”

Negan stared at Ash for a moment, like gears were clicking together in his head but they needed oiled. He didn’t speak, didn’t move from where he stood in the room.

By all accounts and purposes, Negan was acting decidedly un-Negan.

“If I thought you were already dead, I wouldn’t have brought you with us to that base,” he countered, pinching his nose between two fingers. “The _only_ reason I could possibly think you’re a freak is because I’ve never seen a kid pull down one of those giant ass fluorescent lights from the ceiling, never seen a kid so in love with a pair of knives – when she ain’t a damn butcher – and I ain’t _never_ seen anyone drop close to twelve feet, do a fuckin’ 180 while pulling a knife from between their teeth.”

Negan took a step closer, and the hand around Ash’s ribs dropped to her waist, reaching for the knives she didn’t have on her. She drew back in the seat, spine straightening as she leaned away from the imposing man.

Resolve sealing itself in her veins, Ash swallowed. Then, when she thought the silence might swallow her whole, Ash let out a breath and said:

“I want to show you something.”

 

Negan gave Ash his leather jacket, and she was enveloped in the scent off the head Savior, musky, rich, powerful, enough to make her want to stagger and breathe through her mouth while the heavy jacket sat on her shoulders.

On the roof of the Sanctuary, the pair stood, staring out over the largely-empty fields, highways and forests, the air was cold, and the wind was intense, enough so that even the baby hairs that Ash couldn’t pin back were whipping hard against her flushed-pink skin. Negan, in just his t-shirt, stood next to her, blocking the wind with his larger, taller body, but Ash was still shivering. She couldn’t imagine how cold he must be.

She pointed towards the city, the remains of the nation’s capital, after what felt like hours ticked by. From here, they couldn’t see the buildings, the infrastructure, but they both knew what it looked like. Both knew that sections had been bombed out in an attempt to control the geeks, and, after years of this new life, nature was beginning to reclaim the city.  

Negan followed her finger, leaning down to make sure he was tracking, and when he did, Ash adjusted course, pointing off on the northwest side.

“There’s a building out there,” she started, dropping her arm and turning her back to the city. “Old hotel, country club bullshit. Middle of nowhere. They call it the Tower. I called it hell. So did the other girls.”

“Other girls?”

“I wasn’t friends with any of them,” Ash shrugged, finding that the easiest thing she could say. “But there were others. The numbers changed each week, but most of the time I was too out of it to keep up with who was where and who I was staring at.”

She took a deep breath. If she didn’t, Ash wondered if she’d puke or pass out first. Her heart was beating a tattoo against her ribs, trying to pound its way through the bone.

“The first few months – that was when I was with it. I was still fighting then, and then they started giving me these pills.”

Ash ran her fingertips through the hair she could, nails scraping over her scalp. She flung herself around, stumbling slightly with how quickly she moved, and Negan’s eyes widened as he took two steps forward, arms wide enough to box her in, keep her from falling over, but not too close so as to make her jerk away.

“I don’t even know what the hell was shoved down my throat more often than not – I just know the point was to keep me _good_.”

She grabbed Negan’s bare arm in her hand, wrapping her fingers around his muscular limb, and Negan tilted his head to the side, his other arm slowly encircling the girl’s middle, gentle over where she was stitched together. He was staring at her like she’d lost her mind, and maybe she had.

After all, as Ash looked out over towards where the Tower was, she couldn’t help the manic bubble of laughter that pushed up through her throat.

“They always said shit like ‘ _be good, Cinderella, and you won’t get the embers_.’ Like they didn’t understand that after a while I got complacent with the pain, that they needed to get creative if they wanted that to be a threat.”

“Ash.”

She pressed the top of her head into Negan’s chest, now gripping his shirt with her other hand. This was getting unbearable, and she knew she wasn’t making any sense – at least not to Negan.

Ash could connect any of the dots she wanted, whether that was what she wanted or not. Everything had a place. Every word slipping off her tongue had a purpose, even if it didn’t seem logical. Even if she came across manic.

“ _Ash_.”

She looked up, fighting the urge to go back to giggling. Negan’s mouth was pressed into a hard line, his brows knitted together as his hazel eyes bore into hers. Instead of laughing, Ash wanted to puke, to scream, to cry.

Telling this story was no longer something she wanted to do even if he was just going to force it out of her anyway. That’s who Negan was – a forceful, manipulative asshole. He couldn’t be trusted, and he had too much information as it as.

“Let’s go to my office, okay? You’re shaking, and I want to wrap you up, snuggle into you a bit.”

When Ash stiffened, her hands dropping off him and to her side, Negan snapped his mouth shut, tongue clicking against his teeth.

“That ain’t what I mean,” he tried to clarify as Ash looked around.

There were two other Saviors, but they were on the far side of the roof, up wind from them and too far away for her to scream for help from. Biting her lip, she looked back at her boss.

“I’m gonna get you a couple blankets, yeah? And I’m gonna make sure you stop shaking, and then I need to know everything, and I do mean _everything,_ Ash."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I just wanted to thank everyone for the feedback I've been receiving on this story. It's honestly not at all what I expected when I started posting this, but I'm so glad people have been enjoying this. 
> 
> Also, this chapter contains hints of the future of how this relationship will go, so I hope y'all enjoy that.


	9. 3

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hello, friends. This chapter will contain possibly triggering content. None of it is described in detail, but you should still be warned. Possible triggers include: abuse, rape, suicidal ideation/thoughts, child abuse/sexual abuse, forced childbirth. Make sure to take care of yourself.

Ash sat on the floor, pillows stacked up behind her to form a nest-like structure where Ash curled up in, multiple blankets and quilts wrapped around her. She was still wearing Negan’s jacket, having almost forgotten about it, and, now, she stared into the fire he had started, the flames dancing, their image imprinted into her retinas.

Every time she blinked, she could see an afterimage of them.

“I had a brother,” she started, still staring at the fire.

The coals were fishing up a memory from deep within her, and Ash shuddered, pulling her gaze away and looking over at Negan who had drawn over an armchair to sit near her. One leg was crossed at the ankle and knee, and he watched her closely, leaning in towards her.

“My parents had this stupid naming structure where the two of us were named after fuckin’ trees, and they said if they had any more, they’d keep doin’ the same thing,” she said, shifting on the floor to sit facing him directly, her knees pulled to her chest. “His name was Rowan. He was a better person than I ever was – a stronger person.”

“Considering you’re already a badass, that’s hard to imagine,” Negan drawled.

Ash scoffed.

She didn’t feel like a badass.

She’d needed to be rescued from Quinton, and badasses didn’t have the emotional baggage that she was carting around. Hell, the room she’d been given was barely big enough to cram it all in.

“He killed the first geek we came across,” Ash explained. “I was up here visiting him at Georgetown, and so we went to Arlington National Cemetery to make sure our granddad’s grave was looking, iunno, spiffy or whatever.”

“Spiffy,” Negan chuckled. “How old are ya?”

“Twenty-four, I think. Maybe twenty-five.”

“You’re younger than I thought you’d be,” he said, voice ditching the joking quality to it fairly easily. “Guess you hardened, tricked us.”

“I had to,” she countered. “I either got my shit together, or they woulda killed me.”

“Who’s they?”

Ash took as deep a breath as her body would allow, leaning back on the pile of the pillows. The pressure on her stitched back was comforting since she couldn’t participate in any self-destructive behavior while being monitored so closely. The pain was grounding.

“We came across this place pretty early on,” Ash explained, rolling onto her left side, back facing the fire. This put Negan in a semi-blind spot, but, at this point, did it matter? “They called it the Tower since it was this tall, six or seven story hotel or country club, and they took us in.

“Everything was fine at first. Seemed perfectly normal even though people didn’t really know shit at first since it was the beginning. Then we met Z.”

Negan stood, and Ash squirmed, looking up at him, but he didn’t bother her, only sat down at the edge of the pillow-nest, crossing his legs. He watched her, like he expected her to go on, but he didn’t say anything.

Ash lowered her gaze, tracing tiny patterns over the pillow in front of her, her hand breaking free from the blanket prison.

“Z isn’t a nice man,” she breathed. “He makes you seem like an angry rabbit or toddler throwing a tantrum.”

“Shit,” Negan scoffed. “Here I thought I at least ranked as a rattlesnake.”

“You haven’t met Z,” Ash said, shaking her head. “He makes you seem . . . nice.”

“Oh, babe, I can be perfectly nice.”

Ash swallowed at the pet name, trying to tell herself that, _hopefully_ Negan had nothing to do with Z, that that was why she was explaining this whole story that made her want to . . . well, it made her want to die. Just thinking about the details was enough to make Ash contemplate putting a gun to her temple and pulling the trigger.

“Tell me what happened. I promise we can stop any time you need to.”

“Z’s one of those people who believes women are made to serve men,” she whispered, closing her eyes. Her voice came out hoarse, lost, tiny. “Rowan thought he was a pimp before everything went to hell, and he’s probably right. Z always – he always avoided killing u-us unless he could help it.”

Ash rolled onto her back, eyes flying open as she hissed with pain, teeth clenching. After a moment, when she realized she wouldn’t be able to concentrate through it, she sat up, finding Negan’s brow pulled down, one of his hands wrapping over his knee, the knuckles white.

“Us?”

“Z s-s-aid si-since I wasn’t – mm, fuck!”

She brought her hands up to the sides of her face, fingernails digging into the skin at her hairline. She hadn’t gotten to clean her hair, so it remained up – something about keeping the stitches dry for twenty-four long hours and not being able to shower yet.

“I didn’t know how to do much in the b-beginning,” Ash admitted. “I-I’m a farm kid, s-so I can shoot o-okay, and I h-hadn’t gotten th-that gr-great w-w-with knives until I-” she swallowed, pulling her hands down. There was blood under her nails “ – until I escaped.”

Negan noticed the blood too, and he looked like he wanted to say something, but Ash pressed on, hiding her hands under the blankets.

“Z said I could . . . earn,” the last word was whispered, barely auditory over the crackling flames next to them. “I-I thought h-he meant, like, cleaning, or sssomething innocuous, but h-he took me to the top floor, and he . . .”

The hand on Negan’s knee slipped, tightening to a full fist, and Ash jerked back, nearly falling over.

“That fucking son of a bitch,” he growled, a muscle in his jaw throbbing.

“It wasn’t him,” she murmured. “Not the – first time.”

“Wait, so that goddamn dumpster fire of a human being sent others to – to _what_ , Ash?”

Negan was loud. Granted, he was always loud, but while Ash could feel her throat constricting around a knot, her eyes burning with unshed tears, and her head was throwing a fit, Negan reminded Ash of a freight train, barreling passed as he roared.

“To break me,” she admitted.

Ash took a deep breath, wincing halfway as the wounds on her back stretched, and she looked over at Negan, not up at his face, but at his body language. He hadn’t gotten up or risen to his knees, and his hands – both now in fists – were shaking in his lap. His chest rose and fell in rapid, raging succession.

“There’s something you have to understand about Z and the way his world works,” Ash continued, the words tumbling out of her mouth. “Wh-when they want or need things, they had a way of bartering with other communities. Z called it credits, and they could be earned by selling t-to him, but it wasn’t just _things_ that got sold.”

“It was women.”

Her breathing wasn’t coming right, and the need to puke was getting worse. Luckily, she still hadn’t eaten, so if she did, she wouldn’t blow chunks.

“The youngest I ever saw was thirteen.”

“Are you fucking serious?”

Ash nodded, resting her forehead on her knees. The first sob pushed past her lips then, despite her incessant mantra of _don’t show weakness._ She hadn’t even told the worst of the story, and she was already falling apart at the seams.

“That’s why you’ve got that brand on your chest, isn’t it?”

She nodded again, but her hand flitted up to behind her left ear, fingering the roman numeral of scarred flesh. Her eyes were shimmering, and the tear tracks were easily visible on her cheeks in the firelight.

“What are you doing?”

“Th-there’s a second one,” she admitted.

“Dammit,” Negan cursed. “I fucking knew it.”

Ash turned her head as far to the side as she could, trying to let Negan see it for himself, even in the flickering light from the fire. He shifted to the side, and, then, he asked, “can I touch it?”

“Why?” Ash asked, pulling back, head whipping around to face him head on.

“I don’t want to hurt ya, kid, if that’s what you’re thinking – and I bet it is. I can see all those fears playing out in your eyes.”

“ _Why_?” Ash repeated, the word coming out strangled by a new sob bubbling up her throat.

“Touch can feel good, Ash.”

“No,” she said through gritted teeth, drawing her arms around her middle. “Not anymore.”

Negan didn’t push, though, and she was reminded of the stark contrast between him and Quinton, of when she was lying on her back in an overrun military base, the man mocking her for protesting. Negan, though, let it go.

“You have a – is it a three or three I’s?”

“A three,” Ash answered.

For a long while, she stared at the floor by Negan’s boot, and, for an equal time, Negan sat there, silent, scraping his nails against the side of his cheek, along the follicles of his beard. Ash was shaking, not from cold, but from trying to keep herself from crying in front of Negan – or really from crying at all.

Frankly, she refused.

“H-he has a, uh, cl-classification sy-system,” she whispered after a while, drawing the cuffs of Negan’s leather jacket around her hands. It squeaked lightly, protesting the bend. “Th-that’s wh-what the nu-numbers m-m-mean.”

“And that – _animal_ said you were a three,” Negan replied, his voice measured, controlled, like he was trying to hold back a tsunami of explosive, Negan-branded fury.

“Stock, for l-local and personal use.” Her teeth were gritted, and she chose her words as if reciting from a manual – they were practiced and old. “N-not pretty enough to be s-sold; sure as shit n-not special enough t-to be a – to be a one.”

“I feel like I’m going to regret asking this, but what the hell is a _one_?”

Ash rubbed her jacket-covered hands into her eyes, her face, and when she pulled them away, the leather shimmered catching the orange light from the fireplace a few feet away.

Crying was overrated as far as Ash was concerned. It was safer to stay silent, and not just because of the geeks that were magnetized to the sound, but because that, too, was a show of weakness.

She was weak, she was broken, and she was tired.

“Ones are special,” she repeated, looking up at him, briefly, before lowering her eyes to the ground once more. She didn’t register much of anything on his face beyond that he was watching her, his jaw set. He’d been angry for a long time, and she couldn’t help but wonder what his blood pressure was like.

“Elite, Z’s f-favorites,” she went on, trying to focus on anything other than phantom hands and her worsening nausea. “H-he had th-this screening process, t-t-to make sure he got girls he considered – _desirable_.”

“A fuckin’ master race. Jesus fucking Christ on a stick.”

Before Ash could make herself continue, Negan was on his feet, and Ash jerked away from him, landing on her back, staring up at the Savior who pushed his hands through his dark hair. He wasn’t watching her, though, and, in fact, turned away, his hands tightening to fists at his sides.

Ash sat up, careful not to be prone, careful to keep the pressure off her back, and she watched, heart blocking off her throat as it pounded against her airways. She could deal with Negan quietly fuming as he sat still, but verbal, on-his-feet rage wasn’t something she could stomach as easily.

Negan burst apart then, grabbing the nearest object he could – some decorative glass orb – and flung it across the room, yelling with all the might in the world he could muster. The glass shattered against the wall, raining down in shards that caught the various flickers of red, orange and yellow from the fire next to Ash.

Her eyes widened as she struggled to scramble away, stuck in the blankets and the heavy jacket, the pillows impeding her escape as well. His rage only fueled the way her heart pounded in her chest and throat, but now it was tangible in her head, amplified by the concussion.

His chest heaved, the saliva on his teeth shining in the dim light.

Ash shoved at the blankets, trying to untangle herself and get away.

_Get away, get away, get away._

At the last moment, when Ash thought Negan would turn on her, she found herself free, and, with adrenaline coursing in her veins, she whirled on her knees, throwing herself to her feet, and Ash darted towards the nearest exit.


	10. Remade in Fire

Ash found herself in a large bathroom with marble tile. The lights, surrounding her, were white, bright, and cast out every possible shadow from the room. In truth, she didn’t have anywhere to hide.

It was open, not even cabinets she could slip inside. He had a glass shower, so she couldn’t even hunker down behind a shower curtain.

Her hands, shaking and clammy, found the lock for the bathroom door, and she engaged it, still looking around the open room for anything she could use.

At the counter, her eyes fell on a straight razor, and Ash’s mouth went dry, stomach bottoming out into her feet. Maybe that was her answer. Maybe that was the solution. Maybe if she could just –

“Ash,” came Negan’s voice on the other side of the thin door.

She squeaked, trying to swallow a scream, and found herself across the room with ease, picking up the folded blade off the counter. At the very least, maybe she could convince Negan not to beat her if she threatened her own safety with it.

_That’s stupid._

Ash didn’t care about her safety. She cared about the itching of her veins, the way the scars on her arms and thighs burned, desperate for company, and she cared about the way the world went off-balance when the blood leaked out, when the reserves got too low. She cared about the mess it would make, the way towels would be stained. 

Negan could beat her. He could kill her. He could rip out her stitches or puncture her lungs with a knife of his own. He could pierce her ear drums. He could smash Lucille against the side of her skull.

As long as he killed her.

_You seem pretty intent on dying,_ his words echoed in her skull.

In a way, she was.

“Ash,” his voice called again, a little louder. “Look, I have keys, but just tell me if you need some time. If you don’t answer, I’m gonna open the door and check on you.”

“Wait.” Then, a little louder, “ _wait._ ”

He couldn’t get in the way.

That man was always in the way.

Getting her to tell that story about the Tower was probably just his way of softening her up before he went in for the emotional kill. Yeah, that was it. He sure as shit didn’t care about her, regardless of what he preached.

_He probably only killed Clinton and Alexander for hurting the merchandise_ , an angry, bitter voice in her head hissed, wrapping itself around her brain stem.

That made the most sense. After all, she was dirty, used, disgusting – none of these were reasons that Negan should give a shit about her when she’d watched women throw themselves at him, stroke his chest, hook their hands over his belt as they pulled him into them. He hadn't realized she'd seen, but Ash had noticed when he'd disappeared into a dark corner with a pretty blonde. 

Crossing the room, her hands shaking around the straight razor, Ash stood in front of the door, unsure exactly what she should do or say, how to keep him away.

For a moment, doubt slithered through her veins, ebbing away the itching, and Ash nearly dropped the razor, and she scrambled to catch it, breath dying in her chest. If he heard her with his razor, he’d surely unlock the door.

“S-sorry I ruined y-your m-m-mission at the base,” she stammered through the door, slowly unzipping Negan’s jacket. She didn’t need to get blood on it. That would just be rude.

“Ain’t your fault, peaches,” he sighed through the door. “We got everything I wanted and more – only thing I regret is that you got hurt.”

“I-I’m nothing,” Ash said, pulling off his jacket and resting it on the ground in a heap. “W-would’ve been b-better off i-in T-Texas, n-not visitin’ Rowan.”

“Ash.”

She could hear him grip the door frame, the wood groaning under his weight and strength. Either way, it made Ash tense, looking from the weapon in her hand to the locked door.

“You’re a fuckin’ phoenix, kid. Yeah, sure, shit might’ve gone south for a while, but ya know what a phoenix is, right?”

“Yeah,” she breathed. Then, knowing she couldn’t be heard, cleared her throat and said, “I know.”

“Good, then you know you’re gonna rise right the fuck up from the ashes. Remade in fire, hardened like steel. You got me in your corner while you heal, and since you’ve got me, you’ve got the entire Sanctuary and every goddamn Savior at every fuckin’ outpost.”

As Negan talked, Ash flicked open the razor, staring down at the glinting blade, but the more he went on, the more guilt chewed at her stomach like the geeks beyond the walls and down in the courtyard, a crude guard system. Maybe she should stop . . .

“It hurts now, but you can use that pain to make yourself stronger. Listen to me, Ash, you might be named after a fuckin’ tree, but you’re the shit of legends as far as I’m concerned.”

_No._

Ash was tentative, but Negan’s razor was sharp, deadly, and the cut may not have reached fat, but the blood welled up in a flash, each additional heartbeat pushing blood up through the cut.

“Fuck,” she whispered, looking down at her work.

“Kid?”

Ash unlocked the door before she could stop herself, and she dropped the straight razor in an effort to get the door open, her efforts to keep herself from sobbing renewed the moment she laid eyes on Negan’s concerned face.

“What’s wr- why is my razor on the floor?”

She shook her head, trying to cover the new cut on her forearm with her hand as she looked at him, sucking her quivering bottom lip in between her teeth. Gears were turning in Negan’s head, clearly visible behind his stormy eyes.

“Oh, fuck, kid.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered.

“Ash, what did you do?”

She lifted her hand, letting Negan see the cut, and Negan’s eyes widened as he stared down at the self-inflicted wound. Whatever he’d been expecting, that wasn’t it, but, seeing the razor on the ground, the bloody cut on Ash’s arm, some dots connected for Negan, and he shut his eyes.

 

“I’m going to get the doctor,” Negan said when he opened his eyes.

“No!” Ash blurted out without thinking. “I-it’s not d-deep. I just need to s-stop the bl-bleeding.”

Negan sighed through his nose, shaking his head.

“Nah, kid, he knows more about this – whatever the hell _this_ is.”

Negan turned to go, his back to Ash. Her heart picked up again, and when Ash forced herself to analyze whatever she was feeling, she realized she was afraid.

Afraid Negan would leave, afraid she’d be well and truly alone, afraid of what would happen if word of how fucked up she was got out, afraid of what Carson would say, afraid they’d demand to see her legs.

In her mind’s eye, Ash could see the feeble, barely-existent social network she’d been building fall to pieces, herself cast aside now that they all realized that she was broken beyond repair, that just stitching up the wounds wouldn’t put her back together.

“Don’t go, please!” she pleaded, stalling Negan in the doorway.

He looked over his shoulder, the joint obscuring half of his face, and Ash couldn’t quite read the entirety of his expression.

Her heart was beating out of control, and her head felt empty as her breathing turned shallow.

“I-I can be good, I swear,” she went on, the wheezing of her breathing-that-wasn’t-breathing evident in her words. “L-let m-me show y-you.”

“What are you fucking talking about?”

Ash took an unsteady step forward, closer to Negan, as he turned to face her directly. Her hands were shaking, her shoulders were shaking – her entire body was shaking, and her legs felt like Jello.

She reached out, trying to ignore the way her vision was going black around the edges, and let her hand – the clean one, not the bloody one – slide around Negan’s side, her middle and ringer finger pushing up his t-shirt. Goosebumps rose up along his flesh.

“Whoa, hey, hold on a fuckin’ second.”

Negan caught her hand, careful not to squeeze too hard. He looked down, seeming to realize that she was shaking like a leaf in a hurricane, and Ash tried to take a breath, but her lungs refused to separate any oxygen from the air she sucked down, to distribute it into her blood stream.

“Listen, as much as I think you’re a hot piece of ass, this ain’t the time for any form of a hookup.”

“Don’t leave,” she whispered again.

“I’m not,” Negan promised, and Ash let herself get pulled into a hug, let him wrap her up in his arms, let him rest one of his large hands on the back of her neck. “I’m not going anywhere.”


	11. Pasta Sauce

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Since the last chapter was super short, I'm posting two today!

When Ash woke up, she was on Negan’s couch. The fire was still going, and she was wrapped in one of the thick blankets that had been on the floor. She’d even been put down on her left side, keeping pressure off the stitches on her back.

Slowly, she sat up, rubbing her eyes. When she pulled her hands away, she saw her left wrist had a bandage on it, and Ash sighed, remembering her little meltdown.

“Dammit,” she murmured.

Getting up, Ash wrapped the blanket around her shoulders, letting it trail behind her like some sort of cape.

She was alone in Negan’s office, and she wasn’t sure where the leader had gone, but Ash needed a solid answer before she could try to settle down. Knowledge was power, and knowledge was safety. Meaning, she needed all the possible details.

Ash checked the door that had led to the bathroom first, pressing her ear up against it and listening. She didn’t hear anything, so Ash twisted the knob and pushed it open, finding the room empty, only a single strip of lights over the mirror lighting up the room.

Staring at the mirror, Ash bit her lip, trying to figure out where to go next. She still wasn’t quite sure about the layout of Negan’s chambers – of what was where, of what connected where.

There was, however, another door she hadn’t noticed before, near the shower, and Ash straightened, picking up the tail of her blanket-cape. Whatever was on the other side of that door better have some goddamn answers.

Besides, she was still reeling from begging – that word made her cringe – Negan not to leave her, and now, here she was, decidedly alone.

Ash crossed the tile, the cold seeping into her bare feet, and she tried not to let her focus drift down to the cut on the inside of her wrist where the newest cut was hiding under a blanket and a bandage, nestled into a grouping of scars, a reminder of what had happened in the room.

At the door, Ash paused, wondering if she should even go in.

She didn’t know who or what was on the other side, and even if she couldn’t hear voices, that didn’t mean she wasn’t going to walk in on something she wasn’t supposed to overhear or observe. He could be meeting with anyone on the other side – Simon, a different Savior, someone from a different community.

_He could be with a woman._

For some reason, the idea bothered Ash, made her heart skip a beat with something that almost seemed like jealousy or bitterness, but why would she be jealous of anyone being in bed with a jackass like Negan?

Shaking herself of the thought, Ash opened the door – slowly, so as to be able to stop at any moment she needed to, to retreat if she did start to hear anything that sounded vaguely suspicious or unnerving, but she didn’t. Pausing with the door halfway open, her brows knitted together, Ash took a moment, listening for any signs of life on the other side.

Slowly, her ears caught what sounded like sizzling – yeah, like meat in a skillet, sizzling. And then she picked up whistling.

_Whistling._

Whistling could only mean Negan.

Negan, who she felt this inexplicable need to be near, to have around, to never be away from.

It was probably desperation and fear from seeing Quinton and revealing her trauma, Ash tried to reason with herself, but even that sounded weak in her own head.

Ash opened the door the rest of the way, stepping into a room that looked like an industrial goth threw up their entire aesthetic in: black was everywhere. A black, four-poster bed with black sheets and black pillows. A black couch. Metal and glass shelves and a table accented with black. Taxidermy was hung on the factory walls, and Ash almost turned around.

Walking into Negan’s bedroom wasn’t part of the plan.

But the whistling and sound of meat sizzling was stronger in here, and Ash chewed her bottom lip, her skin crawling and stomach churning in her abdomen.

Would he be mad that she had intruded? Would he decide to punish her – either privately (which somehow seemed worse) or in front of the entire Sanctuary? Negan was a man who inflicted pain regularly, and Ash wasn’t sure she could handle a single flicker more of pain.

Briefly, Ash debated calling out for him, to prevent having to figure out _where the fuck_ this man was and get this all over with, but Ash decided to look around a little, and easily found there was a small alcove with two doors.

One was open, and she found herself looking into a well-lit kitchen.

In it, Negan had his back to her, his leather jacket back on with the sleeves rolled up to his elbows, as he whistled, working away at some sort of pot that sat on a stove he stood before. On the burner next to him, there was a skillet with ground beef cooking.

“You cook?” she blurted out before she could think through what she was doing.

Negan, to his credit, didn’t jump or yelp or scream, but his hand did fly to the massive hunting knife at his hip as he whirled around.

When he found Ash, he let out that chuckling from-deep-in-his-chest laugh that Ash had slowly grown accustomed to. He was grinning, sliding the tip of his tongue over his lower lip.

“Shit, doll, how long were you there?” he asked, looking back to his pot.

“Not long,” Ash shrugged. “I didn’t know you cooked.”

“I make better pasta sauce than any goddamn Italian place you’ve ever been too, darlin’,” Negan countered, pointing a wooden spoon coated in that specific sauce at her. “Come here.”

Ash did as she was told, dropping the tail of her blanket-cape, and she looked up at Negan with cautious yet curious eyes. That inexplicable draw to him was still there, like a magnet that could be turned up, and she had to resist the urge to bite her lip – something told her he wouldn’t be able to keep crude thoughts to himself if she did.

“C’mon, try it.”

Ash reached out her hand from inside the blanket wrapped around her, and her thin hand wrapped around the handle of the wooden spoon, just above Negan’s, and she drew the spoon towards her mouth. When Negan started smirking, she looked away, concentrating on the heat that crept up her neck.

Tentatively, Ash licked off a bit of sauce from the tip of the wooden spoon, and she let the taste of something fresh and homemade envelope her. Oregano, basil, thyme, garlic, onion, maybe even a bay leaf smacked her in the mouth, and Ash had to resist the urge to let out a noise of satisfaction.

Above her, Negan let out a low, chuckling _huh_ , and her eyes darted up, hand releasing the spoon handle.

“What?” she asked, trying to ignore the heat pooling in the pit of her stomach.

_It didn’t make sense. She wasn’t supposed to feel that way. Nothing was supposed to feel that way._

“Well, my little phoenix, just seems a little . . . provocative the way you wanna lick something.”

“Don’t be a fucking pig,” she snapped, glaring up at him.

He was still grinning at her, though, eye’s sparking with something she couldn’t name, and Ash let her nails dig into her hidden palm, grounding back in the Sanctuary. She didn’t press hard enough to draw blood, but only to distract herself from the way Negan’s intensity made her heart skip a beat.

He smirked at her, turning back to his cooking, and Ash looked around for a place to sit.

Deciding was easy, and she hopped up on the island counter directly behind where Negan was cooking, her heels bouncing against the wooden cabinet, cushioned by the thick blanket.

From here, she could watch Negan cook, but she also had front-row tickets to the way the jacket rose up around his hips when he shifted his weight to the side, or the way his shirt lifted up from his back when he lifted his arms to get into the cabinet space above the stove for a lid.

He was toned, tan – even as they were getting closer and closer to a Virginian winter.

She could still _smell_ him from this distance, sifting out the aroma of sizzling beef spiced with salt, pepper, more basil, or the olive oil in the boiling water with the pasta he was cooking. Whatever Negan used in his mornings, it was strong, intoxicating, and Ash was trying not to get drunk on it.

_Good god, something was wrong with her._

Swallowing, Ash took a breath through her mouth, shifting her nails to press into the inside of her right wrist.

That intoxication slipped away – not instantly, but it still dissipated – and Ash’s head felt clearer, her low belly like it was tight and on fire all at once.

“How long was I out?” she asked as Negan stirred the meat around the skillet, making sure none of it stuck or burned.

“Little over an hour,” he answered. He put his spatula down before turning, crossing his arms as he looked at Ash. “I didn’t tell Carson about the – shit, I don’t even know what I’m supposed to call that.”

Ash blinked, looking up at Negan.

“Why didn’t you?”

Negan let out a huff, uncrossing his arms as he took the necessary few steps to cross the space between the stove and the island Ash sat on. She stiffened, the tension seeping into every muscle in her body as her brain ran wild with escape plans. These doubled down when Negan put his hands down on either side of her hips, fingers splayed across the counter.

His face was inches from hers, and Ash could see flecks of gold in his eyes. The spices from his pasta sauce clung to him, swirling up around her, diving down her nasal passage.

He was so close, so damn close, and there was that issue of the knife at his hip . . .

“You asked me not to,” Negan said, and his eyes dipped down, looking at – _shit, was he looking at her lips?_

Ash’s heart was beating so strongly against her sternum, she was sure that the plate of bone would be bruised by the organ. Why did he have to be so close? And why did he have to smell like _that_? Could he hear her heartbeat?

If he was so close after she’d told him everything she’d managed about the Tower, did that mean this really was a game, just a ploy to try to win her trust and then stab her in the back?

“But why?” she breathed, trying to remind herself that she wasn’t a rabbit and Negan wasn’t a wolf. She could be just as deadly.

Negan tilted his head, quirking an eyebrow as he smirked, dragging his eyes back up to meet hers.

“Consent, Ash,” he said, as if that made all the difference. “C’mon, you can’t say consent isn’t sexy.”

Ash scoffed, rolling her eyes.

“Don’t you get it, Negan? I’m broken, and that includes the ability to find things – sexy.”

For some reason, forcing the last word out felt bitter, tasted like vinegar almost. Why things couldn’t just be simple, easy, was beyond her.

If the outbreak had never happened, Ash would probably have gotten her shit together and gone to college, or maybe she’d have stayed in retail but become a manager. There’s no guarantee she’d have stayed in Fredericksburg, or even Texas, but she never would have met Z.

Z who had ruined her. Z who had changed her. Z who had left her body and mind with more scar tissue than she could imagine.

Negan pushed away from the counter, and with him, he sucked all the air from where Ash sat. She had to resist the urge to follow the man, to let the inexplicable disappoint paint her face, and she tilted her head down towards the floor, breathing through her mouth to try to filter out the intoxicating scent of Negan.

_Get it together_ , she scolded herself, squeezing her eyes shut.

“You know I can’t let you keep your knives on you anymore, right?”

Ash looked up again, finding Negan’s back to her as he fiddled with his various pots and pans of food he was cooking.

“But they’re-”

“Yours, I know,” he interrupted.

“ _Please_ ,” she whispered, begging to her own dismay.

Negan didn’t look back at her, looking down at the meal he was preparing.

“We can talk about it after we eat.”

 

Ash had pushed her food around her plate for what felt like an eternity, leaning forward on one elbow resting on the table, keeping her stitches from being pinned to the chair. Her world was shattering, her walls crumbling.

All at once, it felt like Negan knew everything.

There were a few things she was still playing close to the vest, but he’d managed to pry enough that Ash hadn’t even noticed just how much she was saying. But Negan was Negan. He radiated charm, possessed the ability to get people to do what he wanted without saying much at all.

When Negan had cleared their plates, putting away the extra food in his fridge, Ash found herself led to the small sitting area next to his bed.

He sunk down on his couch, his leg crossed at the ankle and the knee. The leader spread his arms out along the back of the couch, and he looked up at Ash who was standing to the side, still wrapped in her blanket-cape, chewing on her lower lip.

Casting a look over to the bed, she looked back at Negan, brows knit together. She opened her mouth to say something, but he cut her off.

“If you’re uncomfortable, we can go back to the office, doll.”

“Y-you really a-aren’t gonna – h-hurt m-me?”

“Shit, you’ve been worked up about that for a while, huh?”

Ash didn’t need to nod or acknowledge the question for her answer to be known.

Negan let out a long breath, his head tilting back to look up at the ceiling of his converted factory room. Ash was shaking, and the blanket couldn’t provide anywhere near enough warmth to stop her as she tried to tell herself she could survive him – she’d survived Z, she could survive Negan.

_They were all variations of the same._

“Ash, let me go over a scenario for you, alright?”

She swallowed around the knot in her throat, nodding.

“Look, I beat the holy shit outta Clinton and Alexander just because they wanted-” when Ash flinched, the loose sections of her dirty hair falling into her face, he paused before licking his lips and continuing “-you might have been able to stop them before they went too far, but they got what they fucking deserved.

“If I fuckin’ knew who this Z shit was, or if I knew that any of my Saviors or the workers here knew who he is, I would’ve already killed him and everyone in that goddamn Tower of his. No one there is fuckin’ innocent, and anyone who allows _that_ kind of torture to go on isn’t the kind of person the world needs anymore.”

Negan shifted on the couch, planting both of his feet on the ground, his hands knitted together as he turned to face Ash with his full body. There was a smudge of pasta sauce at the corner of his mouth, a detail Ash had to try to suppress.

“While you were out, I did some thinking, little phoenix,” he went on. “I want to find this Tower.”

Ash jerked back like she’d been hit, head snapping up to meet Negan’s gaze. When her vision went fuzzy, she realized she was crying, and she reached a hand up, using her heel to wipe away the accursed tears.

“No,” she whispered, voice throaty. “H-he’ll kill you.”

“Ash-”

Negan stood, a hand reaching for Ash.

“No!” she shrieked, trying to take a second step back, but the blanket gripped her ankles, yanking her balance out from under her, and Ash found herself on the ground, her breath knocked out of her as she stared up at the ceiling.

Above her, Negan faltered – the first misstep she’d ever seen from him – as Ash turned on her left side, sucking down wheezing breaths.

“If Rowan’s still alive,” she gasped, “and if we invade, my brother’s dead.”


	12. Bloody Knuckles

It took three days before Ash left the confines of her room, hiding out behind a locked door. She let one person in, and everyone else was threatened with a fork she’d broken the tines off.

Carson, to his credit, was utterly dismayed that Ash was on constant edge, barely sleeping. She ate, but only what she needed to stay upright and keep the others off her back.

In reality, the idea of being scrawny, skin and bones, _nothing to hold onto_ was more appealing to Ash than trying to properly recover. Than trying to get better.

Besides, if she didn’t get better, and if she didn’t let Negan in, then he couldn’t go off searching for the Tower and possibly getting Rowan killed. Her brother had protected her since she was born, and she owed him the same curtesy, even if they weren’t in the same building.

On that third day, Ash wanted to shower. Her hair was greasy, and she’d worked up a sweat the night before in the middle of a nightmare that left her sheets soaked. The doctor granted her permission, said as long as she patted her stitches dry, she was fine to shower, and that was all she needed.

Ash had slipped from her room early in the morning, the sun barely peaking over the horizon, and she kept her head down, hands stuffed in the pockets of a denim jacket with a flannel lining that had been brought back from the most recent not-the-army-base run.

The Sanctuary was nearly silent, save for the few workers who had to be up early for the essential preparations that got the Sanctuary on its feet for each day. Ash, though, didn’t pass anyone – not another Savior, not a worker, and she didn’t see Negan.

Luckily.

She couldn’t only hope he was sleeping in.

Maybe she’d managed to piss him off by ignoring him for three days that he’d left to do who knows what at an outpost or a safe house. If he wasn’t here, Ash could walk around. The others would leave her alone, and Simon liked her well enough to let her do as she pleased without asking a question.

Ash reached the communal bathrooms quick enough, her basket of toiletries bouncing against the side of her leg – just a little too low to break open a cut, but not too low to bruise – and she let out a sigh of relief.

She could do this.

The bathrooms and showers were empty, a fact Ash found comfort in.

Claiming a stall in an out-of-the-way location, Ash drew the curtain and began to undress, moving gingerly when the injuries along her back protested as she drew her shirt up, arms stretched above her head.

Stripping down in a public area without even something she could lock wasn’t high on Ash’s list of acceptable scenarios, but it was still empty, and the cavernous room echoed when people walked through it, so she’d have warning if someone invaded the space, but that didn’t necessarily make Ash feel better about exposing every scar, every injury, every private sector of her body.

When she was naked, her boots on the bench, off the floor, Ash turned the water on, standing in the furthest corner as the showerhead sputtered out cold, clear water. It hit her legs, her lower belly, and Ash pressed her limbs together, trying to conserve heat.

It was too damn cold in the factory for the water to be this frigid.

But, of course, winter was looming on the horizon, and Ash had grown up in Texas where summers stayed over one hundred degrees from May until the end of September, most often. Yeah, it’d been a few years since the outbreak, since the end times started, but she had never adjusted.

With the water warm, Ash stepped under the stream, face turned up to let the water wash over her face, clearing the sweat residue from her nightmare just an hour or so earlier.

As she stood there, arms at her side, unable to breathe with the water hitting her in the face, her nose, her mouth, she felt a calm that came from warmth enveloping her, coating her feet on the tile, like an embryo or a hug.

Tilting her head down to the floor, Ash took a deep breath, oxygen flooding her system as she put her hands on the wall in front of her, leaning into them.

Water cascaded over her scarred and bruised body, her black hair turning to a slick, inky void as it straightened down her back, down her spine, over her shoulders. Pain was getting worked out of her shoulders, out of her back, the heat sucking out the aches and knots in her muscles like the age-old adage about sucking venom from a snake bite.

_She was okay._

Well, she was getting there.

Straightening, turning around, Ash bent to pick up the basket that had her shampoo, and she caught sight of the series of cuts down the outside of her left hip, and she was reminded of Kait, the woman who’d tattled to Negan about the cuts on Ash’s legs. A flash of anger bit down on Ash’s gut, and she scowled down at her own thigh.

In a way, she understood why Kait had told Negan.

He was terrifying, especially when he yelled or waved Lucille around, threatening to send the bat into the side of someone's skull. She’d been around the Sanctuary long enough to see just how creative and brutal he could be – and that iron and bat of his were nothing in comparison.

Ash didn’t take long in the shower, even if she felt better under the heat, under the pressure from the water, she knew the peace wouldn’t last long. Eventually, the discomfort from being naked and exposed in the public bathroom would get to her, and Ash’s skin would begin to feel like she was being eaten alive by ants.

When she pushed the curtain back, working out the last of the excess water from her hair, Ash found she wasn’t alone.

A woman was at the sinks, bent over, face obscured, but Ash could see the mousy brown hair braided down the woman’s back, a single earring in the woman’s left cartilage. Her clothes were worn, patches in the elbows of her jacket, the knees of her jeans and various other locations on the denim.

Ash studied her for a moment before stepping out of the shower stall. There was something irritatingly familiar about the woman.

She moved to leave when the woman looked up at herself in the mirror, and Ash realized she was looking at Kait herself.

“Oh, look, it’s the fuckin’ snitch,” Ash sneered, shocked at just how bitter and snarling her own voice could come out, but that shock was drowned by the anger. “He took away my goddamn knives, _Kait_.”

“M-maybe th-that’s not a bad th-thing,” Kait stammered, pressing her back against the counter to try to get away from Ash. “S-some of those l-l-looked deep.”

“Except you had _no right_ to tell him!” Ash snapped.

There was something in the way she said _no right_ that seemed familiar. About the way she punctuated it as she stepped forward, her right half angled towards Kait. About the way she pointed at the ground.

Then, in a moment of horror, Ash realized it was because she sounded like Negan. She’d picked up his mannerisms, too, and somewhere along the way, they’d bled into her, taking over her personality.

Staring at Kait, who seemed to have noticed the same thing, a memory flitted through Ash’s mind.

 _Who are you?_ Negan had asked while going over the last of the things he expected out of his Saviors.

 _I’m Negan_ , she’d replied, still thinking it was absurd that was how he expected them to answer when asked on the road who they were.

Yeah, Ash told herself now as she glared at the woman who gaped at her like a fish out of water, you are Negan.

“What the fuck else did you tell him?” Ash snarled, stepping closer, stalking across the concrete floor. “Ya tell him about the scars on my ribs? Ya tell him about the tattoo on my stomach, by my hipbone? Ya tell him about the birthmark by my knee that looks like a football? Ya give him an estimate on my bra size?”

“Ash!”

Ash whipped around, brain rattling inside her still-sore skull, and she faltered, nearly falling. There, in the doorway to the women’s facilities was Dwight, his nervous eyes darting between Ash and Kait. He was inching closer to Ash who took two quick steps back.

“What kinda freak are you to come in here, D?” Ash accused, hands knotting into fists at her side as she stared him down. She was still riding the high from her rage.

“I heard you shouting,” he said, hands splayed at his sides like he wanted to placate her. “Look, I’m just here because Negan asked me to come get you. He wants you to come down to Easy Street.”

Well, there was that name again. Some term Ash didn’t understand, but she had a hunch, and that hunch was enough to make her sick, to twist the feeling of betrayal in her gut that Negan got her to open up, to tell him so much about what was done to her, and then he goes and asks _this_ of her.

“He should fucking know by now that I won’t be a goddamn whore!” she snapped back, trying to shake the vulnerability.

_Vulnerabilities were weaknesses, and weaknesses got you killed._

“What are you talking about?” Dwight asked, the right side of his face showing off more concern than the twisted, burned side. “Easy Street’s the prison. How do you not know that?”

Her mouth fell open as her shoulder’s went slack. Could she trust Dwight? He was never a man she liked, and he still made her skin crawl over a month later, but if he was telling the truth, then why would Negan want her in the prison?

“Ash, he has something he wants to show you,” Dwight went on, oblivious to Ash’s internal dilemma. “I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about, but I still have to take you.”

Narrowing her eyes, Ash tossed the towel from her hair, running her hands through the damp locks.

“I ain’t goin’.”

The phrase drew out the drawl to her voice, to the accent that had faded over the years in Virginia.

“You can’t just defy orders,” Dwight sighed.

Ash scoffed, rolling her eyes as she started towards the exit – the exit that Dwight stood in front of, partially blocking with his skinny frame.

“Fucking watch me, D.”

A series of images flashed for Ash.

Dwight grabbing her arm. Her fist smashing into his nose. The bone crunching and blood gushing against her knuckles. Kait screaming. Dwight stumbling back.

Ash stared at the blood on her hand, marveling that she could do _that_ without even having to think it through. It wasn’t necessarily a good thing, but still. Her reflexes were getting better. And she hadn’t even registered wanting to puke when his hand wrapped around her forearm.

“What the hell?”

Her head jerked up, taking in the image of two more Saviors. Fat Joey and Simon. Each with guns at the ready, locked and loaded. They didn’t seem prepared to find Dwight pinching the bridge of his nose, head tilted back, even as blood bubbled up from his nasal passage and fell onto his cheeks. To find Ash with her teeth bared, her knuckles bloody. To find some random bystander screaming next to the sinks.

“Dwight, what the hell is your nose bleeding for?” Simon asked, as if his nose had a mind of its own.

“She punched me!” he snapped, his voice muddled by his blocked nose.

“Ash? What did you punch him for?” the second hand of Negan asked, turning his attention to the woman who remained bristled.

“I don’t like to be touched,” she spat out. “Fuckin’ think y’all dumbasses would know that by now.”

“Yo, pretty sure that doesn’t warrant being punched over,” Fat Joey interjected.

Ash glared at him, knotting her right hand into a fist. Negan might have taken her knives away, but he couldn’t keep her from digging her nails into her palm, from sparking pain that way.

It wasn’t enough, though, and Ash was desperate for more, like a junkie itching for their next hit. She craved a blade. Craved that pain. Craved blood and damage and possible stitches. She needed more than just her nails in the flesh of her palm. She needed to go light-headed, to stumble around, to look down in shock at what she’d done.

“I’m going back to my room,” she snarled out, trying to form coherent thoughts around her need to _hurt_. “Don’t fucking bother me.”

“That ain’t gonna fly, sweetheart,” Simon said, putting a hand out to block Ash’s exit.

She drew up short, careful to avoid being touched.

“Negan got impatient that Dwighty here hadn’t brought you down to the cells yet, so he sent us up. C’mon, kid, let’s go.”

“Choke,” she hissed, but she shoved her hands in her pockets, forming her left hand into a fist as well, pressing as hard as she could with both hands.

It was as good as she could get.


	13. Preacher

In an out of the way location on the first floor, Ash found Negan leaning against a wall, whistling to himself as he twirled Lucille in circles. She was flanked by Fat Joey and Simon, Dwight having scurried off to go find Carson and have his nose looked at. 

“Ah, there she is! Was starting to wonder if my little phoenix grew wings and took off on me!”

His voice was too loud for so early in the morning, for someone who had just spent a solid twenty minutes tearing into anyone she saw. Plus, there was blood all over her fingers, and the pain was draining, exhausting.

“What do you want?” she snapped.

“Ooh, damn, who pissed in your cornflakes this morning?”

“I have a list.”

Simon leaned over to Negan, murmuring something so quietly that even when Ash leaned forward, all she could hear was the little voice in her head that licked along sides of her brain, telling her all the ways she could end this or all the different ways every object in the hallway could be used to injure herself.

“Well, kid, seems we’re gonna have a chat later, but in the _meantime_ have I got a surprise for you!”

“Not in the mood.”

“Aw, peaches, how can you say no to me?”

He was grinning at her, that wolfish trait to all his features overtaking the ones that had seemed to actually care just a few days before. The ones that had looked horrified and shocked that she could injure herself while talking to him through a door. The ones that had been so stricken while learning about her past that he’d shattered a glass ornament. The ones that had joked around with her as he’d cooked for her.

No, that Negan was gone. All she had now was the asshole that made her want to slap him.

“Fat Joey, ya got your keys?” he drawled, directing his question away from Ash despite not breaking eye contact.

“Yeah, boss. Want me to open up number two?”

“It’s the only one we have occupied right now, Joseph. Use that brain of yours.”

“Right, sir!”

Fat Joey scurried around Ash, stepping up to the door in the corner. She pulled her eyes away from Negan’s, that intoxicating spell of his broken as she watched Fat Joey flip through a series of keys before inserting one into the lock and turning.

“Bring out our _guest_.”

Something acidic and corroding tinged Negan’s voice. So much so that Ash’s pressure on her palms eased up as she turned to look at him, mouth parted as she tried to understand what had caused such a quick turn in the leader.

_Who the hell did they have?_

Fat Joey pulled out a man that had been badly beaten. He was covered in dirt, his left eye partially swollen shut, his lip busted, his cheek bruised. For a moment, Ash didn’t recognize him, and then, with dawning horror that made the world shift on its axis, and she had to reach out, steadying herself on the wall, she understood who she was looking at.

“Why is he here?” she whispered, voice hoarse.

“Well, Ash, I wanted to find out a little more about if your dear brother Rowan was still kicking, and I needed some internal information for that,” Negan explained, stepping up to the man on the ground. He picked up a handful of his hair, pulling his head back, and the man started wheezing. “Arat and her group stumbled upon this sack of shit while out on a run, and it turns out he knows about us. Ain’t that right, John?”

John – or as Ash had known him, the Preacher – didn’t respond. Only looked at Negan out of his good eye, trying to breathe despite it sounding so shallow.

“Why is he here?” she repeated.

Her legs felt like slush, and Ash found herself on the ground, unable to break away her gaze from the Preacher. John wasn’t watching her, thankfully. He was concentrating on the man with the bat, whose glove-covered hand was twisted in his greasy brown hair.

“You’ll find I’m like a dog with a bone, Ash,” Negan said finally, looking over his shoulder at her, and Ash was reminded of her own words.

She’d thought that about him while they were heading back from the showing of _Friday the 13 th_.

In that moment, she felt raw, exposed, like Negan could see right through her. Like he knew every thought she'd had since she'd been brought to the Sanctuary. About her original plans to escape. About the ideas Ash had about herself when nightmares had her twisted in her sheets. The thoughts Ash had about Negan - including how heat pooled in her belly at times when looking at Negan.

“I refuse to let the fact go that this man here was a part of something as disgusting, as brutal, as _wrong_ as what that freak Z set up,” he went on, turning his attention back to the Preacher. “John here is as undeserving as life as Z is.”

When Simon and Fat Joey didn’t say anything, didn’t ask questions, Ash came to the realization that they understood what Negan was talking about. That he’d shared her secrets and trauma with men she hardly knew. With men she didn’t trust. With other _men_.

“What did you do?” she whispered.

“Me?” Negan scoffed. “I didn’t do shit, peaches. John says he’s been part of a group that’s been hunting you since you left. We couldn’t just let him leave, now could we?”

Ash was choking on every breath, and she reached up, her bloody fingers pulling at her shirt collar.

Oh, god, she needed out of this hallway. She needed out of this Sanctuary. Anything was better than being here. Anything was better than staying here. Oh, god, this couldn’t be happening. It couldn’t. It wasn’t possible.

“See you’re up to your old tricks, huh, Cinderella,” the Preacher wheezed.

“Get him back in cell,” Negan growled, shoving John onto his back.

Negan stood, and Ash was able to watch through vision that was growing black around the edges, as he seemed to wage war between wanting to beat the holy hell out of John and also wanting to be next to her.

_Next to her._

_Don’t be stupid._

Negan slammed Lucille into the Preacher’s side, his lips pulled back in a snarl, brow low, obscuring his eyes. Briefly, he looked evil, vile, like the creature of fairy tales the prince was supposed to defeat.

But Ash couldn’t concentrate on that. She was just trying to keep herself together on the floor of the factory, to keep breathing and not pass out. Her lungs were burning, and the tightness in her throat was almost unbearable.

All she wanted was for it to be over.

“Ash, look at me.”

She hadn’t even realized Negan was in front of her, and she jerked back, eyes wide.

_This couldn’t be happening._

“Ash, hey, baby girl, listen to me.”

“Don’t-”

“Alright, I won’t use that term,” Negan said, lowering himself to his knees, off his feet from where he knelt. “C’mon, you’re about to hyperventilate, you gotta take a deep breath.”

Ash shook her head. She couldn’t. She couldn’t do anything right, let alone breathe. Looking up at him, she expected fury at her inability to follow orders, but Negan didn’t look mad. A little irritated, sure, but he wasn’t about to rage out on her.

“Just try.”

She opened her mouth to try to say something, but she couldn’t. Her airways felt too tight, and every cell in her lungs were screaming for oxygen, for her to breathe in air and not just gasp uselessly.

“You’re safe, peaches, so just listen to my voice and take a deep breath.”

He was coaching her. That compassion and concern was back. Like he wasn’t that vengeful god of their community, the one with a bat who made others kneel when he walked through a hall or entered a room. Like he didn’t burn people for breaking rules.

Ash choked down a gasp of air, like she was swallowing a mouthful of glass. It burned, like her throat was being slashed on the way down, but it was deeper, more solid than her empty gasps.

“Good,” he praised. “See? You can do it.”

They sat on the concrete floor for what felt like years. Negan giving Ash words of encouragement, the scent of the leader washing down her nasal passage when she breathed through her nose, and Ash resisted the urge to lean forward, to wrap her hands in his leather jacket and hide her face in his exposed t-shirt.

When she returned to Earth, grounded herself, she looked up at Negan, finding there was a hand running through her hair, slowly working out knots from her shower, from where she hadn’t combed it, and Ash stiffened.

She hadn’t noticed that.

“Do you want me to stop?” Negan asked, his movements pausing when he noticed her go stock still.

Ash thought for a moment.

Her skin wasn’t crawling, and her stomach wasn’t threatening to empty bile onto Negan’s torso and legs. In fact, she was only bothered because she hadn’t been paying attention.

“No,” she murmured. “I-it’s okay.”

He chuckled, the sound vibrating in his chest, and Ash flicked her eyes up to meet his, but she paused at his lips. Lips surrounded by his salt and pepper beard. His tongue was probing his teeth, the inside of his cheek, and he was smirking.

Always smirking.

“Think you can walk?” his mouth was saying, and Ash pulled her eyes the rest of the way up. “To my office.”

She shook her head.

She still felt like Jello, like one strong gust of wind or the wrong movement would send her crumbling into the floor of the Sanctuary.

“Well, then I think we got two choices, peaches,” he said, his large hand cupping the entire side of Ash’s head, and she found herself leaning into it, eyes partially closed as she frowned, mostly to herself. “We can sit here while you rest up, or I can carry you.”

“But my stitches.”

“Can’t carry you over the threshold like a bride, but I can carry you like a kid . . . kid.”

It seemed viable. And anything was better than sitting here next to the cell the Preacher was in. Yeah, he was behind a locked door, but that didn’t mean shit. He shouldn’t have been able to find her, and, yet, here he was. John had been beaten, yes, but she had firsthand experience of how strong he was.

Ash nodded.

“Give me verbal consent.”

_C’mon, you can’t say consent isn’t sexy._

Oh, shit, Ash thought. He better not go down that road – it wouldn’t be pretty for anyone.

“You can carry me,” she murmured, meeting his hazel eyes.

Negan stood, his hand slipping from Ash’s still-damp hair, taking his warmth with him. He looked down at her, offering her his gloved hands to take, and Ash planted her feet before placing them in his. When he closed his hands around hers, they disappeared, swallowed whole, and she found herself being pulled upwards.

He caught her easily, steadying her as her balance wavered and her world spun. Everything about Negan was so _easy_ for him, and Ash felt like a minnow in a strong current, impossible to control.

“Up you go,” he said. He paused, not moving, and then he hooked a finger under Ash’s chin, slowly tilting her face up to his. “Hey, if anything hurts or I make you uncomfortable, ya gotta tell me. Understand?”

“Yeah,” she murmured, trying to search out any signs of deception in his face.

Negan crouched slightly, knees bent, and situated his hands under the backs of Ash’s thighs. Her arms around his neck, she was lifted up, off the ground, and she hooked her legs around his middle.

“Ya mind holdin’ Lucille, darlin’?” Negan asked, turning his head just enough to look Ash in the face.

“Yeah,” she said again. She couldn’t manage anything else.

Negan turned, allowing Ash to pick up the baseball bat from where it was propped up against the wall.

The bat was smooth in her hand, and she did her best to keep the barbed wire from pressing into Negan’s back or leg, from bouncing off his side.

But she was tired. She hadn’t slept much in the last three days, and especially not the night before.

“So, ya wanna explain why you felt it so damn necessary to punch Dwight straight in the nose? Simon thinks you broke it,” Negan asked as he walked.

His voice was loud in her ear, but it wasn’t as booming and all-consuming as his normal speaking tone.

“I didn’t – I wasn’t really thinking,” she admitted, shifting to put her temple on his shoulder, facing his neck. “I-I was gonna walk out, and the next thing I knew, Kait was sc-screaming and th-there was blood on my hand.”

“Did he do something?” he pressed, turning a corner towards the stairs.

_Good thing you weigh a buck twenty soaking wet_ , Ash thought to herself, realizing the scope of Negan’s desire to carry her all the way to the top, to his office.

“He, uh, he just touched my arm,” she muttered, brow furrowing as she stared at Negan’s neck, where his jaw met the rest of his skull. She could make out the individual hair follicles from here. “He didn’t – Dwight didn’t do anything . . . wrong.”

Negan sighed through his nose, and she could feel the release of air in his chest, the way he worked so thoroughly to keep himself contained – something Negan was rarely good at.

“I’ll make sure it gets around that no one touches you.”

Ash let her eyes close, focusing on nothing and everything all at once.

She kept her mind off the hands under her thighs, the fingers pressing into muscle and what little fat she had left on her. It was easier to let herself focus on the smooth texture of the bat, the way his leather jacket pressed into her cheek. How keeping her arms around his neck and shoulders stretched the healing skin across her back, the skin slowly stitching itself together.

They lapsed into silence, the only sounds Negan’s heavier breathing as he carried Ash’s minimal but impactful enough weight, his boots over the concrete, the occasional sound of bodies hitting the ground as they knelt. Neither spoke. Not to each other or anyone who passed.

When Negan approached the door to his office, that was when he spoke.

“I gotta put you down real quick, and if ya want, I’ll lift ya right back up when I get the door open. Deal?”

Ash nodded.

She unwound her legs from Negan’s midsection, and he carefully let her slip down, purposefully trying to keep her from scraping her stomach on his belt. Her feet were planted on the ground, and Negan released her, stepping back.

He swept her hair away from her forehead, fingers trailing over the side of her face. Ash did her best not to try to fall after them, to chase them, but she couldn’t quite stop herself from leaning towards the warmth that disappeared when his fingers left her face.

Negan stepped to the side, unlocking the door to his office.

“Right this way, angel.”

 

Ash curled up in a plush leather armchair, her heels planted on the edge of the chair as she wrapped her arms around her legs, chin resting on her knees. Negan was fussing with a chest, trying to find something inside of it, but Ash was slowly zoning out, her eyes going out of focus as she stared at the same spot on the rug.

“Why-” she paused, cleared her throat “- why is the Preacher here?”

“The who?” Negan replied, shutting the chest.

Ash shifted her head, directing her line of sight over to where Negan was unfurling what looked like a very soft, very plush blanket he’d pulled out of the chest.

“It’s what – what we called him.”

“Oh – oh, fucking _shit_ , that goddamn sad excuse of a man is a fucking priest?”

He was closer now, standing just a foot or two away from where Ash sat in the armchair.

“Must be fucking Catholic.”

“He’s not a – not a real preacher,” she muttered, reaching one hand out to try to pull the blanket from his hands. “I-it just – made us feel less like . . . like the whores we were to not call him _John_.”

Negan sighed, leaning down to wrap the blanket around Ash’s shoulders, pulling it under her chin, over her arms. She couldn’t meet his eye, couldn’t even look up. Only lifted her arms enough for him to tuck the blanket around them.

“My little phoenix,” he murmured, voice soft.

“Why do you keep calling me that?” Ash deflected. “I’m not _yours_. I’m nothing.”

“Because I’ll be damned if I ever let anyone take you away from me, from this factory, from fuckin’ safety ever again. Because goddammit, kid, you’ve survived hell, and you’ve kicked so much fucking ass along the way. Yeah, you aren’t my blood, and ya ain’t my girlfriend or wife, but that doesn’t mean for one goddamn second that you aren’t someone I don’t wanna lose.”

Ash swallowed, staring at his legs where they rested in front of her. That throbbing in her head was back as she tried to figure out the meaning behind Negan’s words, to try to sort out the intensity behind his tone, but it wasn’t so simple as putting everything in categories. There was such an intricacy to relationships and especially to the multiple layers of her own bullshit.

“Fuck,” she whispered.  

This complicated things. This was going to make her life that much harder while trying to keep her shit together – especially while the Preacher was down in a cell.

“No was supposed to – get attached,” she added.

Negan crouched in front of her, and Ash glanced up, moving only her eyes. It was like he was trying to draw some sort of answer from her as he rested his hands on the arms of the chair.

“What are you talking about?”

“I wasn’t going to stay,” Ash admitted, resting her chin on her knees once more.

Negan was so close, and his strange proclamation of what sounded like love – _better not be_ – was echoing in Ash’s skull, confusing and peculiar.

She reached out, finding Negan’s hand, and drew it closer, hanging on. Maybe if she tried to comfort him while telling the truth, it would soften the blow, and he wouldn’t yell at her. Maybe. It was unlikely. Negan didn’t seem to take rejection well – or losing things he considered valuable.

_Valuable_ , the demeaning voice in her head sneered, _you’re only valuable when you’re naked. That’s all he wants, idiot. Don’t even try to trick yourself._

“Th-that first night. I lied.”

“I know,” Negan said, shifting to his knees and raising himself up to come closer to Ash’s height. His hand was warm in hers, and his thumb brushed over her knuckles. Knuckles that had broken Dwight’s nose and been bloodied not long ago.

“You know I lied, and you didn’t say anything?” Ash’s brow furrowed as she frowned, looking at Negan directly now. “Why didn’t you say anything?”

“Shit, Ash, what did you want me to do? Call you out when two fucking dumbasses broke the rules? Yeah, you mighta broke the rules, too, but shit, you were brand new, and I wasn’t gonna lay into you when you could barely put two words together. Do you want me to yell at you?”

Ash shook her head.

She’d seen Negan yell at enough people to know she didn’t want to be on the receiving end of that. It was always so brutal, so intense, and she couldn’t handle it. Not today. Probably not ever.

“I’m sorry,” she murmured, looking to the side and away from Negan.

“Just tell me why you weren’t going to stay.”

“I-I just didn’t – belong. And there’s so many _men_ ,” the last word was hardly more than a whisper, but it was loud in the otherwise silent room. “I-I didn’t want to be here i-in the first place, ssso I figured, I should just . . . disappear.”

“Do you still want that, peaches? To disappear?”

Ash shrugged.

“I don’t want to hurt anymore.”

A hand pressed through Ash’s hair, separating the strands through the fingers, and Ash lifted her head, forcing Negan to move his hand with her. It glided down the side of her skull, the heel of his hand resting partially on her chin, and his rough thumb traced the bony precipice of Ash’s cheek.

She took an unsteady breath.

“You don’t deserve to hurt,” Negan insisted, his eyes burning like coals. “You never did, and you never will.”

Before Ash could really process what was happening, Negan was pulling Ash into his arms, leaning forward into the chair. Her legs were in her chest, and it was hard to breathe, but when she heard what sounded like disjointed, wet breathing, Ash realized her struggles were from crying. Not the way she was folded up.

Ash scrabbled for purchase on his leather jacket, pushing her face into Negan’s neck, partially inside the collar. She was bent over, trying to nudge Negan enough to get her legs down on either side of him, to not have her knees digging into her ribs, but he was so intent on keeping her flush against his body that she was unable to get him to move.

“Wait a second,” he murmured, and Negan’s hands found Ash’s shoulders.

He tried to push her back, really, he did, but Ash let out a strangled sort of cry through her sobbing, wrapping her arms around Negan’s shoulders and upper back.

“Don’t leave! Please!” she wailed, voice thick.

“You can’t get rid of me that easily, little phoenix,” Negan said, cupping the back of her neck, no longer trying to push her away. His thumb brushed under her hair, against her skin, and a shiver ran down Ash’s spine. “I need to ask you a question, though, and I need you to answer me honestly. Got it?”

“You won’t leave?” Ash asked, practically begging. A small hiccup left her mouth.

“I won’t leave,” he promised. “Can I pick you up real quick?”

Ash nodded, sniffling.

Negan untangled her arms from his body, lifted her chin and used his thumbs to wipe away the tears leaking over the rim of her eyes and falling down her face. They were quickly replaced, but the gesture was one Ash noted, absorbed in her stressed-out mind.

He stood, lifted the young woman, something he must be getting used to, and Negan turned, bringing the blanket around with them as he sat down, letting Ash situate herself in his lap.

For a moment, she was hyper aware of where she was, holding her breath as she ran her hands over her thighs, to her knees, but then Negan pulled her into his chest, his hands staying away from the stitches, away from her sides, staying up around her shoulders and upper back.

She sucked down a haphazard breath, resting her head on his pectoral, and Ash squeezed her eyes shut, pulling the blanket closer to herself, around her knees.

“I’m here,” Negan murmured in her ear, helping her get the blanket wrapped around her entire body.

Ash nodded, forced to breathe through her mouth as her nose clogged with snot.

This was embarrassing, breaking down in front of her boss, a man who was this all-powerful being in the world of the end, but here she was. A failure and a mess.

That only made her sob harder, curling forward, her cheek brushing against metal on Negan’s leather jacket.

“Whoa, hey, peaches, you’re safe,” he cooed, pulling thick, black hair out of Ash’s face. “You’re safe, and ain’t _no one_ gonna lay a hand on you ever again while I’m around.”

“Y-you d-d-don’t kn-ow these p-people,” she gasped, curling her arm around his middle. He wasn’t pure granite like she’d thought, but he was solidly built, a man of muscle. “Th-they could a-already b-be i-in the Sssan-ctuary.”

“For their sake,” Negan growled out, “they better fuckin’ hope they aren’t here.”


	14. Corrupt

“Explain it to me,” Ash said, following Negan towards the kitchen, still wrapped up in the blanket, though now she was missing her boots. “What makes you think we could raid the Tower?”

“Before we came across you in that pharmacy,” Negan explained, flicking on the lights. It might be day out, but it was gray, overcast, and the windows didn’t let much light through. “Some of the guys found some Kevlar in a sheriff station, and the amount of roamers had put people off from getting into it. Not only that, but from that base you got us into, ya damn monkey, we now have RPGs. Gotta love the military. Providing even from the afterlife – if there is one.”

Ash chewed on the information, running the soft fabric between her fingers. He had a point. The Sanctuary was well-stocked when it came to weapons, and RPGs were certainly one hell of a force to be reckoned with.

“There’s kids there,” she countered. “M-master race and shit, but the other families – the workers. Ain’t their fault.”

“Fair enough,” Negan replied, pulling open his fridge.

He leaned in, digging through various jars and produce, searching out something in particular. Ash, though, made her way to the island, resting her forearms against the cool countertop. Crying did this to her, wore her out, overheated her.

“I just – I really don’t know i-if Rowan is still _alive_.”

The last word was whispered, choked out through her hoarse voice.

“We’re gonna talk about him, too, peaches, but first, what do you want for lunch. Chicken tacos or some kinda stew?”

“Wh-whatever you want,” Ash shrugged, not looking over at Negan.

He didn’t reply, but she did hear the fridge shut. His boots crossed the tile, striking in a way that only a certain arrogant asshole did in that factory, and Ash shrank into her body, shoulders rising around her neck, trying to protect herself a little better.

“Look at me,” he ordered.

Slowly, Ash tilted her head until she was looking at Negan. Sorta. She didn’t meet his eyes, instead looking at his brows in an attempt to fake it, but faking it came with the territory these days. Especially for her. Even as her walls crumbled down.

“What do _you_ want, sugar?”

She shrugged again, noncommittal.

“Damn, Ash, would it kill you to be selfish for once?” Negan scoffed. “You’re allowed to ask for things you want, and you’re still a Savior, so you can fuckin’ take whatever the hell your pretty lil’ ass pleases.”

“Selfish would be taking my knives back when you already know I’ll hurt myself again,” Ash snapped before she could think of a controlled response. Then, when she realized the words were out, she mumbled, “fucking hell.”

Negan sighed, a long breath escaping his beard-encased lips.

“Why’d you even start? What the hell made you think that – that fuckin’ slicing into yourself would make things better?”

Ash looked down at her hands, and she found herself rocking back and forth on her feet, rising into the tips of her toes and sinking onto her heels.

It was such a loaded, complicated question, and she doubted Negan even understood what he was asking her. She doubted he even truly grasped a fraction of what she’d described – even though that was miniscule – of being at the Tower.

How the hell did she explain her decision to cut into herself to someone who very clearly had never even picked that as an option?

“You wouldn’t get it,” she murmured after an eternity of silence stitched a shroud around the pair.

“Try me, goddammit.”

She took an unsteady breath, pleading with herself not to start crying again. Twice in one day would be too much, and she was still trying to stomach the fact that the Preacher was _here_. Yeah, he was several floors below her under lock and key, but he was _here_ , in the Sanctuary, and Negan had touched him.

 _Negan had touched him_.

Negan had touched the Preacher before he’d held Ash.

“Fuck,” she whispered, cursing for what felt like the millionth time that morning.

“I just want to help, bab- doll. That’s all.”

Ash glanced over at Negan, realizing he was about to call her _baby girl_ or something similar, but he’d stopped himself. Changed course. Because she’d asked him not to use that pet name.

“Didn’t – I didn’t want t-to f-feel them,” she stammered out, clenching her fists and looking down at the countertop, trying to search out any imperfection she could possibly find. That was easier than watching Negan’s expressions. “W-wanted t-to control m-my own . . . pain.”

“Shit,” he murmured. “You just – you wanted to erase their touch? Am I gettin’ this?”

Ash nodded, running her hands through her hair.

“It ssstarted there,” she hissed out, pressing her nails into her scalp. Maybe she’d draw blood, maybe she wouldn’t, but the pain helped.

For a moment, Ash was able to appreciate the irony of the situation: digging her fingernails into the skin across her skull while explaining cutting to Negan.

“Th-they left a f-fork,” Ash whispered. “M-my room h-had a – had a fireplace, a-and I sharpened it. N-no one sssaid any-thing since most o-of the guys were v-violent. Wh-what was o-one wh-whore, y’know?”

“You got high off the pain, didn’t you?”

“I-I guess,” she replied, pulling her fingers out of her hair. She didn’t check for blood before hiding them under the blanket. “I just – felt better.”

“You’re incredible.”

Ash jerked, straightening up as she looked over at Negan, an accusatory glare on her face.

“No, not because you turned to self-harm to cope, but because you’ve fucking _survived_ ,” he explained, taking a step closer. When Ash pulled away, he stopped and continued, “I can’t pretend to understand half of the bullshit you saw in the Tower, and I can’t pretend to understand this, but, shit, kid, you made it for _years_ with those monsters.

“You can’t see it, I get that now, but you’re so goddamn good at what you do, and you can do it all. Ya make the guys laugh, you got me into that army base, you’re snarky as hell and that’s a fuckin’ excellent practice in patience for me, shit, but, look, you _made it_. I don’t know how the hell you got out of that place, but you’re here now. You’re here now, and that’s just fuckin’ amazing. If they still had award shows and shit, you’d deserve them all – applicable or not.”

She turned her gaze to the ground, his words wrapping around her in the most complicated of manners. Surely, he didn’t mean all of _that_. There wasn’t anything good about her, let alone _incredible_. She scarred her body, let herself bleed under showers to avoid clean up. She was broken and used, like a frayed rope that came apart after one use – impossible to work with and useless.

Ash was consumed with her own dark thoughts as she stood still, staring at the tips of her sock-covered toes.

A set of fingers caught the underside of Ash’s chin, pulling her face up to meet his own. She swallowed, feeling the knot go around the indent created by Negan’s first two fingers. His thumb came up, brushing over the line of her jaw, and Ash found herself overcome with such a strong need to trust someone, to be comforted, to let them take care of her, that she was hardly able to stomach looking up at Negan.

“You don’t believe me, and you can’t – I think I get that now,” he said, shifting his hand from under her chin to the back of her neck, under her hair. His thumb ran over the trio of lines behind her ear, and Ash’s skin lit on fire. What she couldn’t tell was if it was bad or not. “I’ve never really known how _not_ to inflict pain. That’s what I’ve been good at since this all started. Hell, I wasn’t exactly a saint before, but, shit, kid, sometimes I feel like I shouldn’t even be allowed to come near you, let alone touch you.”

“What are you – what does that mean?” she questioned, still trying to decipher the way the _three_ brand on her neck burned.

“Shit, kid, considering some of those names you called me in that hospital room – you don’t think I’m a good person, do you?”

“As a rule, I don’t trust men,” Ash murmured, eyes downcast, looking at Negan’s wrist as she spoke. “Not since-“

Negan’s other hand came up, long fingers combing back black hair from her forehead, away from her face. Her brow furrowed.

“I-I think they broke my ability to trust,” she admitted. “Along with everything else in me.”

“You wouldn’t have told me a fraction what you have if you didn’t trust me,” Negan countered. “Even a tiny bit, huh, peaches?”

“To be fair, I was on painkillers, that concussion was in full force, and I’d lost a shit ton of blood,” she retorted. “If it was that first night, I woulda got my shit together and gone completely silent.”

A realization came to Ash as she thought about the amount of blood she’d lost, the stitches suddenly hyper-apparent in her back. Looking up, she picked up her hand from under the blanket, lifting it up until she was able to touch the side of Negan’s face. His beard was stiff, slightly scratchy under her fingertips, and Negan raised an eyebrow at her.

“I never thanked you,” Ash said. “I’m not sure how you got me back sixty miles, but I’d be dead – and not because of something I did. Or because of a geek. But because of fucking Quinton.”

“Shit, doll, you don’t have to _thank_ me,” he smirked. “But, if you want to, I ain’t gonna stop ya.”

Ash blanched, pulling her hand away from Negan’s face, fingers curling around the air. Negan seemed to catch what he’d said, and he ran his tongue along his lower lip, his teeth. Ash’s heartbeat picked up, nausea rolling through her stomach, and she was sure he could feel the way her pulse quickened.

“That’s not what I mean,” he sighed, and he caught Ash’s lingering hand, running his thumb over the knuckles as he brought it down to their sides. “I _will not_ do anything you don’t want – shit, I’m not even gonna _ask_ you to touch, try, do, feel – anything. Not a damn thing.”

She swallowed, turning her head just enough to the side so she didn’t have to look at Negan head-on. That crawling sensation to her skin was back, like she needed to scrub off layers upon layers of dried mud from her flesh. She was keenly attuned to Negan’s hand on her neck, the other wrapped around hers.

 _Words can be faked_ , that insidious voice in her head purred.

But he was so fucking _consistent._ If he wanted to trick her or betray her, he could have flipped on his words way sooner and just taken whatever it was that he wanted from her. Which, in Ash’s experience with vile men, would be violent, disturbing and painful.

“What did you mean earlier?” Ash asked, trying to distract herself from the inner turmoil of trying to figure out if she was allowed to trust at all. “About not feeling like you could – be near me?”

“While I might be in the habit of savin’ people, peaches, I’ve done a lot of bad things. Before the world turned to shit, before I was in charge, and even now. Hell, you haven’t been around when we’ve rolled up to a new community, but there’s always someone who’s gotta die. I mean, I’m a fuckin’ dick! I forced you into coming here without giving you a choice, and yet you don’t seem to hate me. But, shit, I don’t want to corrupt you – if it’s even fuckin’ possible to corrupt an actual angel.”

Ash winced, more to herself then Negan. To her, she was corrupted. Like a computer program from before gone wrong. This was the second outpouring of emotion he’d given her in the last bit, and Ash was more than uncomfortable with it. He wasn't supposed to be like this. 

Exhaling until there was no air left in her lungs, Ash slid her hand free from Negan’s, and she looked up to find him looking almost sad – if that was possible for him. Reaching up, her hands shaking a little, Ash put her hands on his chest, a slight frown on her face as she pressed her lips together.

Then, without thinking it through much more, Ash shifted, wrapping her arms around Negan’s middle, her face pressed into the spot where his jacket revealed just the barest hint of his t-shirt, the zipper digging into her throat, but it was the kind of pain that Ash liked in a way that she shouldn’t.

“What are you-?”

“Shut up before I change my mind,” Ash cut Negan off, her fingers linking in the small of his back.

Negan laughed, the sound vibrating in Ash’s cheek as she turned her head to the side, resting her ear over the leader’s heart. It beat out a steady, strong rhythm, the kind that reminded Ash of childhood comforts like the dog they had growing up or laying her head on Rowan’s chest when the siblings would go stargazing.

His hands stayed at Ash’s shoulders, something she was slowly building up a tolerance to, drawing her nearer to him. Whatever qualms he’d had seemed to be squashed as they stood in the kitchen, the blanket slipping from Ash’s shoulders, and Negan’s leather jacket soft in the way only worn-in leather beneath her fingers could be.

Before Negan could open his mouth to ruin whatever moment was occurring, or before Ash’s body decided it was time to jump off the deep end to Panic City, the walkie talkie on Negan’s belt interrupted.

“ _Hey, boss, there’s something weird going on at the front gates,_ ” one of the men Ash wasn’t sure of the name of said through the radio as she backed away from Negan, pulling the blanket up around her. “ _If you’re with Ash, I think she should be here, too.”_

“What is it?” Negan asked, pulling the walkie talkie off his belt, his eyes searching Ash’s face.

“ _Shit, I wish I knew_ ,” he said. “ _Oh, wait, huh, looks like a kid in some shitty Halloween costume and some soccer mom.”_

“What the fuck?” Ash murmured, mostly to herself.

“On our way,” Negan said into the radio. He released the talk button, running his tongue along his teeth. “Guess lunch is gonna have to wait, my little phoenix. You gonna be warm enough without the blanket?”


	15. Unexpected Visitors

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Double chapter today kids! We're also getting close to where I am in the story (about seven chapters apart if I don't break them up), and I have a huge scene planned that I think will bring us closer to the angsty feels of the beginning. Because I am a dick after all.

Stepping onto the balcony that overlooked the yard in front of the gates, surrounded by a fence of walkers, Ash had to momentarily shield her eyes. She’d been up since early that morning, but she hadn’t been in any of the rooms that experienced much sun. Negan’s rooms weren’t exactly graced by natural lighting.

“Huh,” Negan mused, standing further away from Ash than he had in his kitchen. “Shit, apparently we need someone to read the damn constellations to see if it’s near Halloween or not.”

The blinding rays of light were dissipating, and Ash rubbed at her eyes, speeding up the process of adjusting to the world.

In the center of the courtyard, warily eyeing the geeks tied to the fences, staked down on spikes, chained to concrete barriers, was what appeared to be a mother and son duo. The boy, no more than seven, was wearing a torn, bloody, and dirt-smeared skeleton costume, and he was clutching the hand of the woman.

She was older than Ash, approaching thirty, but she was the type to exist in a naturally put-together way, even while she was coated grime and her lip was busted. Her tanned skin was exposed without a jacket or coat, and her hair, while needing combed and the sticks and leaves removed, was shiny, tied up in a ponytail.

“Oh, you’ve gotta be shitting me,” Ash hissed, wrapping her hands around the metal railing and rocking back, stretching her shoulders out.

“What?” Negan asked, looking down at her. “Oh, shit, you know her, don’t you?”

“We should kill them while we have a chance,” she spat, turning to leave.

Negan caught her wrist. Though his grip remained loose, it prevented her from leaving as Ash rooted firmly to the concrete under her feet. Her back was to the woman and her child, and that was easier than looking at them.

“Cinderella!”

A chill ran down Ash’s spine, and she tried not to flinch, really, but that name was still enough to trigger an immediate panic response in her system, chest clenching, blood running cold, and her breath caught in her throat, choking her.

“Peaches?”

Ash whirled, picking the massive knife off Negan’s belt before either of them could question her further. Taking a quick step, she vaulted over the railing, sending herself flying through a solid twelve feet of empty air. She rolled through her landing, over her left shoulder, keeping the knife positioned to where she wouldn’t skewer herself, and gravel dug into her shoulder and down her back, the shards of rock pricking through her jacket.

Standing, Ash felt momentarily light-headed, but her feet were taking her across the courtyard before she could question her body or what she was doing. Grabbing the child and yanking him into her, Ash pressed the serrated blade into his throat, pressing hard enough that a bead of blood rolled down into his collar. He cried out, reaching for the mother.

“Tell me what you’re doing here, or I’m going to slit his throat and let him turn,” Ash growled, her fist tightening in the side of his costume. “And don’t fucking call me that.”

“Please – just let him go!” she wailed. “He has nothing to do with this!”

“This isn’t a fucking negotiation,” Ash spat, adjusting her grip on the knife’s handle. “Spit it out, Luna, you know I don’t like to repeat myself.”

“John! I’m here to try to find John!” Luna confessed. “God, Ash, he’s just a child, don’t do this!”

“I was a fuckin’ child!” she roared, “I was _nineteen_ when shit hit the fan, and there’s girls who got brought back to the Tower who were thirteen, so you’ll have to fuckin’ understand that I ain’t that sympathetic to a child who’s half of _them_.”

“Mom?” he whimpered.

“It’s okay, baby,” Luna sobbed, tears running down her face.

“Ash!” Negan bellowed over the courtyard. “You let that child go!”

_Dammit, Negan._

Now, she was conflicted, interrupted in the middle of – what the hell was she doing? Shit. Ash looked down at the boy, at the blood welling up under one of the points of the serrated blood, at the way his crystal blue eyes were sparkling with tears.

_Goddammit._

“You’re as bad as the rest of them,” Ash accused, dropping the knife to her side. She shoved the boy forward, towards Luna. “If you fuckin’ think for a goddamn second that I’ll ever _help_ you, then you should just kill yourself and the kid, save the rest of us the trouble when you get yourselves bit.”

A hand wrapped around Ash’s wrist, and she turned to swing, to jerk the knife upwards, but a second hand caught the bicep of her knifeless hand, freezing her in place. Negan met her eyes, peeling his hand off of her upper arm to take his knife from her grasp.

“We’re gonna talk about this shit, peaches,” he warned her, voice low.

“Are you Ash’s new master?” Luna asked. “Thank you for sav-”

“Cool your jets,” Negan interrupted, tossing his knife away before Ash could steal it back. Her heart was still beating a mile a minute, and she bunched her hands into fists, finding herself shaking. “Ash is a goddamn Savior, and I’m _no one_ ’s fuckin’ master. Not without some goddamn consent.”

Ash was shaking, not from the cold breeze that blew down her neck, but from the rage that had twisted her gut into knots, the way it made her blood boil.

“Throw ‘em in a fuckin’ cell if you won’t kill ‘em,” she hissed.

She took a step back, away from both Luna and the kid and as well as Negan. Others were still watching them, confused but also intrigued with the spectacle. Towards silence and a locked door. Towards peace and safety.

So far, the Preacher was here, and he was much nastier than Negan could possibly guess, and now Luna and some kid had followed him? Even though the Preacher had gotten there probably sometime during the night? Yeah, this was going swimmingly.

In front of her, Negan was beckoning the other Saviors closer, distracted by a kid with a bleeding neck and a beautiful Latina. For once, Ash was glad he thought with his dick as often as he did, and she turned around, sprinting with full force into the Sanctuary.

She ran like her life depended on it, barely able to breathe, her lungs burning, screaming, begging for even a drop of oxygen to keep them going. To keep her going. But there wasn’t _time_ to stop to catch her breath. She didn’t even know exactly what she was running from, but Ash needed to run, to get away, to put as much distance as possible between her and the newcomers.

Ash crashed around a corner with the full force of her body, her hand steadying herself on the wall as she turned. It came away bloody, leaving a palm smear from where she’d dug her nails into her skin. Panting, Ash lingered for just a moment before she found herself flying down the hallway, towards the stairs.

“Ash!”

She didn’t stop to turn around and see who was calling after her. She couldn’t.

Someone was chasing her, their boots just as heavy on the concrete as hers. No, wait, that wasn’t right. Hers weren’t nearly as forceful. She barely weighed a thing compared to whoever was chasing her down, doing their best to catch up with her.

She turned another corner, skidding around as her feet tried to quit the grand escape Ash’s panicked mind was planning. She just needed _out_. Away. To get safe. To get as far away from the Preacher, Luna, the ghost of Quinton. Z.

To get away from Z.

“Ash!” they shouted again, and that need in her head that desired nothing more than to be safe told her to stop running, but the adrenaline pushed her onwards, towards the stairwell.

She shoved open the door to the stairs, slowing down a fraction.

That gave her pursuer an opportunity, and arms wrapped around her, strong, lifting her partially off the ground. Ash screamed, thrashing, clawing at the black leather jacket the person wore.

“No!” she shrieked, voice cracking.

She was placed on the ground, but before Ash could take off again, she was pressed to a wall, a large hand cupping the back of her neck, tilting her face upwards. She squeezed her eyes shut, heart pounding on her tongue, in her throat, in her ears. Whatever was about to happen, she didn’t want to see it.

“Ash,” they said – he said. A man was holding her against the wall, his other hand holding her wrist while his thumb stroked her skin, under her jacket cuff. He took a measured breath before adding, “open your eyes. I’m not going to hurt you.”

Doing as she was told, trying to tell herself that she was better off that way, Ash forced her eyes open. At first, she couldn’t tell who she was looking at, her eyes were clouded with tears, so she blinked twice, forcing them to fall down her cheeks.

“Shh, hey,” he soothed. “You’re safe.”

Negan stood before her, his brow furrowed. He was panting lightly, his breath hitting her in the face, warm and smelling faintly of sourdough bread. Her breathing, on the other hand, was shallow, coming in quick gasps as she looked up at him, eyes wide, panicked.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered. “I’m so sorry.”

“Whoa, hey, what are you sorry for?”

“W-wasn’t good,” she murmured.

Everything felt empty, and she wanted to throw up. God, she wanted to puke. But there was that sense that if she did, everything would be that much worse for her. That much more painful and bruising.

Ash looked away, choking back a sob.

“Don’t even try it,” Negan countered. “Yeah, I’d rather you didn’t put a knife to a kid’s throat, but, shit, you did what you did because you wanted to protect yourself and the rest of us from that Z fucker, right?”

She nodded, head swimming.

Maybe this wasn’t real. Maybe she wasn’t pressed against a wall with Negan’s hands on her neck, on her wrist, his body pushing up on hers, blocking her escape. Maybe she’d wake up in her room in the Tower, just to find this was some fever-induced dream from coming out of withdrawal from whatever pills they’d been shoving down her throat to keep her compliant.

“You need to fuckin’ breathe, Ash.”

“Can’t,” she murmured. “Can’t.”

Negan pulled his hand off her wrist, hooking a finger under her chin and pulling her face towards his. She couldn’t quite focus as she sucked down meaningless, sharp gasps of nothing. It burned and stabbed her lungs, her trachea, all at once, and her veins cried out for much-needed oxygen, but she couldn’t do it.

Ash grabbed Negan’s side, her hand clawing at the unforgiving leather.

“Help me,” she begged. “Please.”

“Alright, doll, listen to my voice, okay? You’re _here_ , with me, the mightiest of men.” He paused to chuckle, and Ash could feel it through his stomach, in her hand. “Take the steadiest breath you can, and just let the smooth, deep tones of my voice soothe you.”

She glanced up at him, grounded enough to want to say something snarky about the narcissistic moment he seemed to be having, but far enough gone over her inability to breathe that Ash wasn’t able to comment on his over-inflated ego.

Still, though, she did try to breathe as best she could.

“I promise, that woman and the Preacher will be thoroughly interrogated, and we will make sure there is no threat. Even if there is, we have so many goddamn guns, there ain’t _no way_ those fuckers could get us. You want me to list what we have?”

Ash swallowed, nodding. The throbbing in her head was back. She’d been able to ignore it most of the day, but now, at the foot of the stairwell, Ash wasn’t able to ignore any of the pain in her body, threatening to eat her alive.

“RPGs, forty-eight AR-15s, twenty-five Berettas, eighty-three AK-47s, sixty-eight M-16s . . .”

She started zoning out as Negan listed off a large inventory of weapons. He started with the assault rifles, down to the hunting rifles, the sniper rifles, the shotguns, and then he moved to pistols. At that point, she was panting, but her breathing wasn’t so sharp and piercing to her lungs, and Ash pressed the top of her head into Negan’s chest. Still, he kept listing, spewing out the grenades they’d found at the army base.

He went on to talk about knives, and that was when Ash’s skin began to itch.

“Stop,” she breathed.

“What is it?” he asked, running his hands through her hair.

“Knives,” she whispered, like the word was dirty, tainted.

“Ah, shit,” Negan cursed. He sighed, the air ruffling Ash’s black hair. “I’m proud of you.”

“F-for what?” she hissed, clutching at his side, her hand slipping under his jacket to grab at his shirt. “I’m a fuckin’ failure.”

“Nah, Ash, you told me what was bothering you, and that’s a big thing to be able to handle. Not everyone can do that, but look at you, my little phoenix. Fucking incredible, just like I said. Now, what do you say to lunch?”

“I’d rather puke,” she admitted, closing her eyes.

“Sorry, doll, that’s not an option,” he chuckled. “You’re _way_ too skinny to be able to skip out on a meal.”

Negan took his hands, running them through the messy black, mostly dry hair, starting from Ash’s temples and down, over the sides of her skull, through the length until he was able to settle his hands on her mid-back, barely touching where her stitches were.

“C’mon, you gotta eat,” he pressed. “And we gotta get the doc to look at your stitches, make sure nothing got pulled while you were being a fuckin’ badass.”

He was technically right. Her body did require fuel, and her morning had been so screwed up that Ash hadn’t eaten. It was amazing she was still going as strong and resistant as she was, and, yeah, after rolling from a jump, gravel grinding into her back, and sprinting through the halls of the Sanctuary before Negan scooped her up, she probably pulled out at least one stitch.

Most likely, something was bleeding under her jacket and shirt.

Ash nodded.

She took a deep breath through her nose, exhaling through her mouth, and she did her best to focus on what each of her five senses could tell her.

As expected, she could smell Negan. Musky, spicy, with a hint of earthy moss. The additional touch of his leather jacket dashed in. He was a little sweaty, and that was mixing with his natural musk, amplifying just how masculine Negan was. Beyond that, though, she could smell the concrete, freshly washed by some of the workers, the tang of metal from the stair railing.

Beyond the door, Ash was able to hear workers going about their business, Saviors barking orders. She could hear her heartbeat still, attempting to settle back to an even rate that didn’t strangle her as it thudded in her veins. She could hear Negan’s breathing, even and deep, in front of her, in his chest.

Focusing on the hand under his jacket, she could feel the leather over the back of her knuckles, smooth, worn in, and Negan’s t-shirt was soft under her thumb where she stroked back and forth, focusing on the knit texture. Ash could even feel the muscle underneath, the ridges of where they were defined.

“Ooh, sugar, be careful there,” Negan warned, his stomach tightening under his hand.

“Are you – are you ticklish?” she asked, looking up at him.

“No, peaches, that is an entirely different sensation.”

Ash pulled her hand back, jerking her whole body to press against the wall.

Goddammit, why did she have to be like this? She wasn’t supposed to do – to do _that_ to Negan. He wasn’t supposed to enjoy anything she could do.

“Ash,” he said, voice dropping to a low murmur. “It’s okay, you’re safe.”

“I just want it to stop,” she cried, legs giving out, and Ash slid down the wall, her back still pressed against the concrete. Briefly, she was aware that the action probably ripped out even more stitches, but she wasn’t with it enough to care. “All the fuckin’ torment, a-and the need to puke b-because ssssomeone touched me.”

Negan knelt in front of Ash, looking like he wanted to touch her, to pull her flush with him, but he kept his hands to himself, resting them on his knees.

“You know it’s not your fault you feel like that, right? You didn’t ask for any of this.”

Ash looked up at Negan, face blank and devoid of any emotions. While he might be right, Ash wasn’t going to admit that. She was too far gone for this shit, and she was quickly dropping into a deep, black pit of nothingness.

“The guys have orders to lock up that woman and the kid, alright? They won’t be allowed out of the room unless it’s an emergency, so you won’t see them. Same with the Preacher. They can’t touch you, they won’t see you, and I’ll take care of the interrogation, got it? You’ll be safe. If need be, I’ll have them taken to separate outposts.”

He sighed, moving his hand slowly to pick up Ash’s hand, rubbing his thumb over the back of her fingers.

“We’ll move your room closer to mine if it makes you feel safer, and we’ll get some stronger locks that only you and I will have keys too,” he continued, and Ash suppressed a yawn, trying not to show how exhausted she was. Negan, though, noticed everything. “Alright, come here. Let’s get some food in you.”


	16. One Vicious Creature

It took two days for Ash to leave her room again.

During those two days, she didn’t open her door unless she went to use the women’s facilities, and when she did, she scurried around like a rat trying to avoid being seen or touched or even catching a glimpse of her own demons. She didn’t eat the food brought to her, convincing herself it would send her under, knock her unconscious with some sort of sedative.

She had, however, allowed the doctor to fix thirty-eight of the stitches she’d pulled.

On the second day, Ash stood in front of her locked door, arms wrapped around herself. This was getting ridiculous, but she was still convinced that she’d open the door, and instead of finding the concrete of the Sanctuary she was used to, Ash would find herself in the Tower, stepping out onto crimson and gold carpets.

In her head, she could see the dark panels made of oak framing sections of the walls at intervals of twelve feet down the hall, the way the cream paint was still well cared for. Paintings were hung and dusted twice daily, and a sprawling greenhouse on the grounds provided flowers for the arrangements on each and every floor.

“Goddammit!” she cursed under her breath, running her hands through her hair. “Fuck, Ash, get it to-fucking-gether, and quit bein’ a goddamn pansy ass motherfucker!”

Before Ash could think to smash her head against the wall or punch something, there was a knock on the door, and Ash froze in place like a deer in the headlights of a Mack truck. Her throat tightened, palms going clammy as cold sweat sprouted on her neck, dripping down her back.

_Shit._

“I know you’re in there, sweetheart,” a distinctive voice she was quite used to called through the door. “C’mon, doll, I brought lunch.”

Ash inched nearer to the door, scratching at the scars on her left forearm as she debated if there was a way she could remain alone, isolated behind a locked door. Glancing up, she considered the air vents, but they weren’t necessarily stable enough for her to hide in without indenting the metal and giving herself away.

“Hey, you good in there?”

Still, Ash didn’t open the door, leaning against the wall nearby. He was so damn loud, and she was somewhat dizzy from not eating for the last two days and barely consuming water.

“Ash! Give me a damn sign you’re alive!”

He’d probably break the door down if she didn’t, and then Ash would probably be forced to move closer to Negan. There’d be no way in hell he’d leave her alone then if she was moved closer. But, damn, all she wanted was a simple exit. An exit that didn’t involve feeling like she was going to turn the corner and see someone with a lit cigarette, ready to leave a new set of burns on her arm.

He jiggled the knob back and forth, and Ash let out a breath, pushing herself off the wall to get nearer to the door itself.

She didn’t speak as she flipped the newly-installed deadbolt, but she did note how her head felt heavy, and like her hands were weighted down with cinder blocks. Her fingers didn’t want to cooperate on flipping the tiny latch for the lock on the doorknob, and it rattled in place as her grip fumbled.

When it was finally unlocked, Ash left the door shut, turning back around to trudge over to her bed.

The door opened before she could make it to her bed, but Ash didn’t turn around. She was tired, and if someone was going to get mad at her for being a brat, then she was okay with letting them. Maybe it would let her drift into that coma Carson had talked about when he was fixing her up after getting back from the army base.

“Ash.”

She crawled onto the bed, not bothering to turn around and face the man now invading her space. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. She’d been found, and she would never be safe again, so why bother eating, why bother acknowledging anyone?

“Hey, Ash, what’s going on?” he asked as he shut the door once more, leaving the two of them inside a small room.

“Just put the food on the table,” she muttered, curling up on her left side. The next part was a lie, but she had to say it, “I’ll get to it later.”

“They already told me you aren’t eating,” he countered. “You know that ain’t an option, peaches.”

“Who cares?” she sighed, sitting up.

Block spots peppered her vision, but when they cleared, she found Negan, as expected, standing next to the small card table in the corner, a covered bowl with an apple on the surface. His brow was furrowed, eyes hidden in shadows.

“You consider that I do?” he retorted, the tone controlled but the underlying bitterness was clearly evident in his words.

Ash sighed, leaning her head against the cool cinder block wall next to her. Her concussion was mostly faded, but not eating had spiked her headaches right back up to the center of her attention.

“ _Why_?” she demanded, eyelids heavy. “Don’t you get it? I’m a fucking used up, waste of space, degraded and fucked-up whore. Go bother one of the women that wants to jump your bones.”

“Ash, if that’s what I thought, I never would’ve made you a Savior. I wouldn’t have even been the one to bring you back after that fucking prick tried to carve out your fucking kidneys or whatever the hell he wanted at the base. I wouldn’t have held your hand while Carson stitched you together. I wouldn’t have cooked for you or let you sleep on my couch. I wouldn’t have kept your secret about cutting yourself to cope.”

Negan took the few steps necessary to cross the room, and he caught the underside of Ash’s chin, lifting her face up to meet his, pulling her closer. Gooseflesh crawled down her scalp from where her head left the wall, and Ash shivered.

“You know what I really wouldn’t do if I didn’t care, Ash? I wouldn’t be preparing plans to go to fucking _war_ for you.”

Ash squeezed her eyes shut, wanting nothing more than to flop backwards to lie prone and go to sleep, but she was frozen in place by Negan’s touch, by his words. She couldn’t move if she wanted to.

Taking a deep breath, Ash racked her mind for a counter. Trying to figure out why he was lying.

“Helen of Troy. Men went to war for her. Because she was so fucking beautiful that Aphrodite promised her to Paris of Troy. A fucking cult was dedicated to her. I’m . . . nothing.”

Negan didn’t reply for a long while, and Ash looked up at him. He licked his lips and sighed.

“No one’s promising you to anyone,” he said. “Sure, I think you’re hot as shit, and every time I’ve seen you act like a fuckin’ badass, I grow more and more attracted to you, but that doesn’t mean I own you. I would never brand you or mark you with anything other than hickeys _if you let me._ Goddamn, peaches, don’t you get it? You’re half my age, but, fuck me, I want nothing more than to make you _happy_.”

Ash blinked, swallowed, and slowly reached up, hooking her fingers around Negan’s wrist. His gaze flicked down to her hand, and she knew he was getting a good look at the deep slashes that were still bright red, angry scars and the small cut she’d made in his bathroom, but he didn’t look long, and Negan brought his eyes back up to Ash’s face.

She pulled his hand away from her chin, sliding her fingers in between his own, interlocking their hands, and Negan squeezed lightly, his thumb tracing circles over the skin between Ash’s thumb and forefinger. Ash herself tugged, pulling him down closer to her, and Negan rested his other hand on the mattress next to her thigh.

“You should get some better taste, Negan,” she murmured, lifting her mouth up near his ear. “I’m sure you could put up a request, asking for volunteers to fuck, and half the women here would be outside your office. Hell, the guys too.”

Negan’s hand on the mattress caught Ash’s shoulder, pushing her back, and his thumb dipped into the gap beneath her collarbone. Shock washed down his features when he realized just how scrawny she still was, but he quickly got back on track.

“I don’t give a shit about if you think I need _better taste_ – whatever the fuck that self-deprecating shit means,” he growled, pushing his forehead down to press against Ash’s. “I fucking want you, not the others.”

Before Ash could form a retort, Negan’s mouth crashed to hers, warm, tasting vaguely of whisky, and his facial hair pricked the skin around her lips. His kiss was firm, but there was so much emotion packed into it that sucked Ash’s breath out of her lungs. He was warm, and despite being such a hardass most of the time, his lips were soft as they meshed with hers.

Ash shoved back on his shoulders, preparing to bring up her leg to kick him in the groin or stomach if need be, but Negan pulled back, his breathing heavier than it had been before he kissed her. On the other hand, Ash flung herself off the bed, away from Negan, and she hit the concrete floor on unsteady feet, her heart beating erratically in her chest.

“Why did you do that?” she shouted, voice cracking.

_It wasn’t all bad_ , a tiny, rarely heard voice in her head murmured, a traitor. _He tastes good._

“I wanted to kiss you when you were sitting on the counter in my kitchen,” Negan replied, easily coming around to stand opposite her. “It wasn’t a good time, I know that, but I just – fuck, Ash, you really don’t get it, do you?”

“What is there to get?” Ash snapped. “You’re just gonna-”

_Gonna use me like the others_ , she wanted to say, but something stopped her from saying it.

A memory flitted through her of sitting on the counter while Negan cooked, of the way her lower belly clenched while fire pooled inside her as she felt utterly drunk on the way he smelled.

“Fuck, it was stupid of me to think you wouldn’t go there,” Negan muttered, mostly to himself.

Yeah, he was angry, but he didn’t seem like he was angry at _her_. More like he was angry he’d kissed her without waiting. Like he was angry at himself.

Ash pressed her hands to her stomach, the zipper of her jeans pressing into her skin, the cold a sharp distraction from the way her skin burned beneath it. Maybe it wasn’t . . . wasn’t so bad that Negan had kissed her.

Her skin wasn’t crawling, and that tiny voice in her head still had more to say.

_He made you feel like that. When was the last time you felt like that? C’mon, it was still in Texas._

That stupid voice had a point, admittedly, but Ash wasn’t exactly prepared to deal with her own physical reaction. She didn’t know _how_ to deal with those kinds of reactions. The last ones she could remember were from high school, when she was crushing on the quarterback that everyone else was also lusting ever.

Well, a parallel could be drawn between that situation and this.

Ash took a deep breath, turning back to face Negan, and she caught his leather jacket. He hadn’t zipped it, and Ash was able to pull him closer to her, their bodies flush against each other.

“Go slow,” she ordered, bending her head back to be able to look at him. He seemed so much taller when they were like this. “I think I can – I want to try.”

Negan grinned, one had burying itself in her hair, cupping the back of her head. He craned his neck down to press his mouth against hers, and, this time, he was incredibly gentle, though the intensity was still there, pulled back as he kept himself from crashing into her lips.

Ash pulled one hand off of where it was holding onto his jacket and slid it up his chest, over the curves of his muscles until she reached the side of his face, hand pressing into his cheek, the sharp hairs of his beard, pressing into her palm, along the scars and scabs.

Her breath was completely gone from her lungs, but Ash didn’t mind the sensation as her head swam. All around her, she was encapsulated by Negan’s scent, by the way he tasted, swirling around her body, diving into her clothes to linger later. That fiery pit in her belly was growing hotter, and Ash resisted the urge to press her thighs together.

Negan pulled back, giving them both a chance to suck down air. Ash looked up at him, at his dilated pupils and the way his lips were pinker than usual, darker than usual. Those same lips were pulling back into his signature smirk, his tongue running along his lower teeth.

“Shit, didn’t think you’d do that,” he chuckled, his laughter rumbling in his abdomen that was still pressed against hers. “Goddamn, doll.”

“Me neither,” she admitted, pulling her hand away from Negan’s face and resting it on his chest. “You meant what you said earlier?”

“I did,” he replied, picking up the hand she just placed down and pressing a kiss to the inside of her palm. He didn’t comment on the scars or scabs, but he couldn’t have missed them. “We’ll move as slowly as you need to, and you can have a safe word, and I won’t try to get you to do anything before you feel ready. Got it, peaches?”

Ash nodded, letting Negan steal her hand as he wrapped his own around it.

“Unfortunately, I’m still gonna need you to eat.”

She sighed, resting her head on his chest. She couldn’t expect herself to get lucky enough he’d drop that line of inquiry.

“What did you bring?”

 

Ash sat across from Negan as she spooned mouthfuls of rabbit stew into her mouth. Potatoes, onions, carrots and celery made up the bulk of the dish, and that was something Ash was perfectly okay with. She’d never gotten used to the taste of rabbit or squirrel. Other meats, yeah, but not those two.

The man she’d just kissed was watching her, leaning back in his chair as he watched her work through the bowl he’d brought down, but there was a frown on his face that made Ash question herself.

“Did I do something wrong?” she asked, bringing up a bite of meat and stock.

“You couldn’t if you tried,” he chuckled, but there wasn’t any humor to Negan’s laugh. “Look, it ain’t good shit that I need to talk to you about, but you’re low right now, and I don’t want to fuck you up.”

Ash paused chewing mid-bite, pulling her eyes back up to meet Negan’s. Something was definitely bothering him, and if he didn’t want to tell her, then that probably meant –

“The Preacher or Luna and her kid?” she asked around her food.

Negan shook his head, sucking on his teeth as Ash finished chewing and swallowed.

“I know them better than you,” she pressed. “I know what sets the Preacher off, and I know what – I know what they used to do to Luna while Z w-was still t-testing i-if she could b-be a one.”

“You’re really willin’ to turn that much against another woman who was that much of a victim as you?”

“Don’t call me that,” Ash snapped, slamming her spoon against the card table.

Negan only raised an eyebrow, otherwise not moving.

He wasn’t wrong, per se, Ash was certainly victimized by Z and his men, but being forced to acknowledge that Luna was also a victim when she couldn’t bother herself into renouncing her abusers made Ash’s skin crawl.

“Others found ways to get rid of the fetuses,” Ash said. “Luna, whenever I saw her, was always _proud_ that she had her kids.”

“Wait, you said _kids_. She’s only got that one with her. Will.”

Ash scoffed, pushing her hair out of her face as she looked back up to meet Negan’s eyes.

“She’s a goddamn liar and a snake. Luna has three kids, unless she’s pregnant again. The oldest is that one. _Will_ , apparently. There’s two others, both girls. I don’t know their names, and I don’t know who their fathers are, and I don’t really care.”

“Jesus fucking Christ,” Negan muttered under his breath. “Look, I’d already planned on letting you kill Z, but, shit, doll, I’m almost regretting that.”

Ash stood, rounding the table’s corner until she stood directly in front of Negan. She bent down, her hands on his shoulders as he looked up at her.

“Let me kill the Preacher,” she bargained. “He killed the only friend I had at the fucking place other than Rowan. I want to fucking kill that son of a bitch and take his geek head, chopped off from the body, to Luna and that brat of hers on a fucking silver platter.”

Negan stared at her for a moment, his mouth parted just slightly before he pulled Ash down into his lap, causing the girl to yelp as she straddled him, his large hands sliding up to her waist, away from the stitches. He kissed her again, and Ash didn’t protest, leaning down into the movement.

“Fuck, you’re one vicious creature, aren’t you?” Negan chuckled, his breath rushing around the contours of her face. “God- _damn_ , you are fucking incredible.”

He kissed her again, Ash’s arms wrapping around his neck. There was something so dizzyingly addictive about being entangled with Negan like this, about plotting the murder of one man and psychological torture of a woman.

“We need to plan out all the details,” he insisted, pulling back far enough he could look at Ash’s face in full. “I want this to go off without a hitch, and that means having an out for you if it gets to be too much.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sixteen chapters in and we've got a smidge of action. When I said slow burn, I meant slow burn. Anyways, I much appreciate every kudos and comment y'all have left. Just a warning ahead of time, the next chapter is going to be . . . a little intense.


	17. It's Never Over

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> TW: torture, abuse, blood, gore, 
> 
> Basically, shit's rough, y'all

The following day, after a long day of fleshing out a plan of attack to use on the preacher in Negan’s office, the pair were accompanied out to the nearest outpost. It was a small caravan compared to the day the Saviors had gone out to the military base, and Ash tried to tell herself this wasn’t that. This time, they were going to one of Z’s men with full knowledge of him existing in the destination they were driving towards.

Ash sat between Negan and another Savior, a man somewhere in age between Ash and Negan. They called him Bull, and when Ash had asked, Negan had snickered next to her, leaning against the door panel as their driver pulled up his shirt to show to indented scars where he’d been gored by a raging bull, one wound an entrance, the other an exit.

“Rodeo’s aren’t always fun and games,” Bull had said, putting his shirt back down over his ebony skin.

“When I was ten, I saw a clown trampled by a mustang that reacted badly to the pistol shot fired into the air,” Ash replied, shrugging. “I mean, he died, but apparently the tickets got refunded.”

“Shit,” Bull laughed as Negan ran his hand through Ash’s hair. She hadn’t pulled it up yet, and he was able to tangle his fingers in the long locks. “Proves my point, though, doesn’t it, kid?”

“What, that animals shouldn’t be used for show? That they’re just as unpredictable as geeks?”

“Why do you call them that?” Negan inquired, tucking the black hair behind her ear. “Why not a biter like some do, or roamer, walker?”

“Circus or carnival geeks used to bite the heads off live chickens during early America,” she shrugged. “After Rowan killed the first one in Arlington, we tried to put a name to the monsters we were facing, and I came up with it. It fits, y’know?”

When they reached the fifteen-minute mark of their impending arrival, Negan handed Ash a flask filled with homemade vodka. It wasn’t Ash’s taste at all – she was more of a whisky girl before the world went to shit – but anything to dull the panic she’d end up smacked with was welcome. It didn’t need to taste good, it just needed to do its job.

Ash unscrewed the cap from the flask, and she tipped her head back, slamming back a mouthful of the liquor. It slid down her throat, into every crevice of her stomach, as it made its way into her veins, warmth spreading to the tips of her toes and the edges of her ears. It was biting, not what she remembered vodka tasting like, and Ash grimaced, pulling the flask away from her as her eyes watered.

“Goddamned forced sobriety,” she cursed, coughing twice before wondering if she should eat something else from their stock before she pounded back the rest of the liquor.

“Thought you said they had you on pills?” Negan questioned.

“I meant booze, ya shit,” she grumbled, tossing aside the idea of eating something else and sipping a much smaller mouthful of vodka on the second round.

Next to her, Bull stiffened at her calling Negan any sort of name. Negan, forced to keep up appearances, leaned over, the hand in her hair tightening as he pulled away the flask from her lips.

“We’ve been over this, Ash,” he growled.

“Sorry, sir,” she squeaked out as Negan tugged her head back, exposing her neck.

Truly, they had talked about Ash calling him things like _over-muscled, testosterone-addicted slice of shit_ and jackass, asshole, motherfucker, etc. in private and how that couldn’t extend to public appearances with the pair. If others weren’t allowed to insult Negan with names, neither was she.

Still, though, she couldn’t help the way her eyes widened, and she tried to swallow as she looked at Negan out of the corner of her vision. He was partially bent over her, the leather a hulking beast of a man compared to Ash.

_If he’s going to keep doing this, you seriously need to put on some weight_ , a new voice drawled in her head, pragmatic and bored all at once. _Damn, Ash, stop tryin’ to set off guys bigger than you._

Negan released her hair, and Ash sucked down a small gasp of air as the flask was put back in her hand. She closed her fingers around it weakly, head spinning.

“You weren’t of drinking age before the word turned, were you?” Bull asked, their conversation settling back to normal as Ash sucked down another gulp of vodka, drowning in the warmth spreading over her body.

“No, but my brother and his friends were by the time I went to my first party,” she shrugged. “That’s how I know I like whisky, bourbon, even scotch and rum more than vodka.”

Negan chuckled next to her, running his fingers along the outside of the heavy flannel sleeves of the otherwise denim jacket she wore.

“I knew you weren’t a vodka girl,” he mused. “Remind me to collect on that bet I had with Simon.”

“You had a bet with Simon on what kind of liquor I like?”

“I only take out bets I won’t lose,” Negan grinned, tongue running languidly over his lower lip. “Drink up.”

 

Ash stood down the hall of where they were keeping the Preacher, trying not to let the mostly-squished trepidation get the best of her buzzed state. Negan was saying something, his mouth moving, but Ash, obsessing over what was about to happen, didn’t process any of his words.

She blinked, pulling herself together, and tried to focus on Negan.

“What did you say?”

Negan sighed, shaking his head as he popped Lucille up on his shoulder.

“You got five minutes before we get shit started,” he repeated. Negan stepped closer, catching Ash’s hand and pulled her around a corner. He dropped his voice. “You sure you can do this, peaches?”

Ash laughed, any doubt she could possibly have drowned out by the warm thrumming in her veins and the alcohol that made everything easier to take.

“It’s too late to back out,” she scoffed. “I have my knives back, and I’m not alone this time. No concussion either.”

Negan shook his lead, looking like he wanted to say more, but he looked down at his watch, frowning.

“I can’t come in – that shithead already knows I’m in charge,” he said, looking almost sad as he surveyed Ash. Her skin was flush, her hair pulled back now in a ponytail that hadn’t been smoothed along her skull as she drew it back. “I’ll be right outside. If any of those pricks who are supposed to be Saviors don’t ask _how high_ when you say jump, I need their goddamn names, so I can put them on fence duty.”

“I’ll be fine,” Ash shrugged.

_I hope._

Ash pushed the door open to the Preacher’s holding cell. He was in the center, lit dimly by a single overhead light that needed a bulb changed. At each of his shoulders, two of the outpost soldiers were stationed, holding two AK-47s as they stood guard. The room was decently sized, and there was a mirror to her right.

Her gaze lingered for a moment, wondering if it was a one-way or two-way mirror, and if Negan was already watching. She hoped he was watching, ready to pounce if she needed him. Which, likely, she would need him. This whole act was about to be insane.

Getting to business, Ash paused about ten feet in front of Preacher John’s chair. He looked, for lack of a better expression, like a steaming pile of horse shit.

Someone had beaten the absolute holy hell out of him, and his breathing was even more labored than it had been when Ash had seen him pulled him from his cell in the Sanctuary’s prison. The bruising Ash had originally observed was amplified, the colors deepened to a _Starry Night_ attempt of blue and purple, and his cheek and temple had swollen up around his right eye like a plum, sealing that line of sight.

A trail of blood leaked from his nose – which was clearly broken upon inspection – and diverted around the corner of his mouth, running down his chin and his neck. There were a series of cuts on his left forearm, rounding from the back onto the inner, fleshy section. A series of cuts that Ash realized were an exact mirror copy of her own – minus the depth. Whoever had made them didn’t go deep enough.

His shirt was torn, revealing thick chest hair and bruising and blood along his abdomen from hem line to where the tear in the fabric ended near his pectoral muscle.

Ash, standing in clean jeans, a clean, black t-shirt, a clean jacket over that along with boots that had been recently polished, was a stark contrast to the man whose greasy hair was flat against his head, but Ash’s, freshly washed, was clean, soft, the thick curls moving with ease.

“Alright, boys, status update,” she said, unzipping the denim jacket.

“Well, ma’am, he’s proving resistant to most torture techniques,” the man on the right – her right – stated, his stance sharpening as her gaze fell on him. She racked her brain for his name for a moment as he spoke, and it landed at what felt like the last minute: Mendoza.

“Has he been fed recently?” she continued, starting to strip from her jacket. She didn’t need to get it dirty.

“No, ma’am, just as you ordered,” the other, Trenton, replied.

“Good job, boys,” she chuckled, trying to make the sound come across as dark as possible.

So far, this was going according to plan. Ash was channeling Negan and the other devilish men she’d encountered over the years. She could do this. She had to.

“Now, which one of you shitheads are goin’ to take this coat and hang it up for me?”

“Ma’am, please allow me,” Trenton offered, that false eagerness dripping from his voice.

_Goddamn, they were making this easy. Someone give these two an award._

Trenton took the jacket from Ash’s fingers, bowing his head to her as he passed. He disappeared through the door Ash had entered through. Meanwhile, Ash gave Mendoza a nod, and he took several steps back, disappearing into the shadows as Ash approached.

“How’s it goin’, padre?” Ash drawled, pulling a pair of fingerless gloves from her back pocket. The same ones she’d worn at the military base. “Hope my guys aren’t treating you with too much respect.”

“Fuck . . . you,” John wheezed, his breath rattling in his chest. “ _Whore_.”

“Oh, sweetie, it’s so cute that you think I’m anything other than the person standing between you and certain death,” she chuckled humorlessly. “Ain’t that somethin’?”

One of the cuts on the Preacher’s arm was oozing blood, the red liquid dripping onto the floor beneath him. As Ash observed that, she realized his blood pressure was spiking, and her little interaction with his two guards had gotten to him, gotten under his skin.

“Let’s have a chat, John,” she continued, tone as sharp as the blades at her hips.

Ash snapped her fingers, and Mendoza appeared with a wooden chair, placing it in front of the Preacher and where he was secured. The Savior disappeared again as Ash took a seat, drawing up her chair to sit within four inches of her knees touching the Preacher’s knees.

“See, you and I both know I got out. I fuckin’ escaped, ah, hell, what was it? Five months ago? Has it been that long since you got to bite me, Johnny boy?”

The Preacher started to growl, but the damaged landscape of his internal organs gave way to coughing, and blood landed at Ash’s feet, splattering her polished boots. She _tsked_ in distaste, widening her feet to sit as much like a man as she could comfortably stretch her jeans, and Ash leaned forward.

“I need to know who else is hunting me,” she stated. “You might as well just tell me. You’ve got plenty of flesh I can still destroy, and I’m sure you don’t wanna lose the important bits between your legs, huh, John?”

“Go to hell,” the Preacher spat, blood dribbling down his chin, mixed with spit. “I ain’t tellin’ you _shit_.”

“Looks like we’re doing things the hard way.”

Ash stood, kicking her chair behind her, out of the way, and she drew her right knife from its holster, flipping it to adjust her grip comfortably. The knives were a comfort, a reminder that she knew exactly what she was doing, that she didn’t need the liquor to do _this_ to a man, that she didn’t need Negan to encourage her.

Before John could blink, Ash drove the heel of her boot into his crotch, pressing as hard as she could. A howl ripped through his lips as Ash sneered down at him. An ugly feeling boiled in her gut, insidious, hateful, full of destructive power that wanted the entire world to burn.

“I fuckin’ told you this wouldn’t be fun,” she snapped at him. “And you fuckin’ called me a goddamn masochistic freak? Looks like this is what you wanted, asshole.”

Ash pulled her foot off John’s groin, and he sucked down a breath, quickly choking on his own blood and spit. Her senses were still muddled, but Ash found herself wanting another drink, wanting a stronger drink. She didn’t need it. Not really. But it sounded good.

“Tell me. How many people are fuckin’ hunting me?”

John didn’t reply, and Ash grabbed his wrist, tightening her grip over the rope that held him in place. Driving the tip of her knife between his nail and his skin, Ash listened to the Preacher scream, the sounds so reminiscent of something she’d been through with him. Blood bloomed beneath his nail, raining down onto the concrete, staining the metal of her blade.

“You fucking cunt!” John bellowed. “I’ll fucking kill you!”

“Bet you’re wishing you’d done that when I was still in the Tower,” Ash hissed, pulling her knife free. “You’re shit outta luck now, though. _I_ have the fuckin’ power.”

His breathing was labored, heavy, like a man trying to haul an entire redwood up a mountain in the Rockies, but Ash found that ugly feeling in her gut was mixing with something else. Something like lava spreading out through her low belly.

_Like she was getting off on this._

“You know, Luna and one of her little crotch monkeys showed up,” she drawled, stepping away from John, backing into the shadows as she circled him. “I think Will’s his name. I wonder what he’d sound like if I cut open his abdominal cavity.”

“Don’t you _fucking_ touch him, bitch!’ John wheezed, trying to wriggle in his chair to follow Ash’s voice, to see where she would come from next.

“Oh, are you still not gettin’ it, Preacher? That you aren’t in control? That if I want to slice off pieces of that kid’s toes and feed them to you, I _can_?”

Truly, that idea sounded absolutely disgusting to Ash, but, hey, psychological torture was often just as effective if not more so than physical abuse.

_She could do this._

Ash snapped her fingers again as she came to a stop in front of the Preacher, stepping into the low light. Mendoza scurried forward, offering Ash a .9mm Glock, his head bowed just as practiced, and Ash placed her knife back in its holster to pick up the gun from his outstretched hands. She paused, running her fingers over the side of Mendoza’s face.

“Tell me, do you like this job?” she asked, using a single fingertip under his chin to pull his face upwards and towards her. “Do you like listening to my orders?”

“Yes, ma’am,” Mendoza breathed, and Ash could feel his quickened heartbeat. _That_ wasn’t part of the plan.

Ash smirked, trying to ignore the feeling that told her Negan probably wouldn’t be happy about this little stunt in her toying with John, but Mendoza hadn’t acted inappropriately, and she and Negan weren’t a couple. Therefore, he couldn’t do anything . . . right?

She shoved him away, turning her attention back to the heavy weapon in her hands, and Ash pulled the slide back, sending a bullet into the chamber.

“Last chance, John,” she stated, stepping closer, turning off the safety. “How many men are hunting me?”

John grit his teeth, showing off how yellowed and bloody they were. Ash sighed, pulling back the hammer. She lined up her shot, and she pulled the trigger.

The bullet ripped through the Preacher’s kneecap, landing in the concrete underneath, and his screams filled the small room, rooting firmly in Ash’s memories. There was no way she wouldn’t hear those in her sleep later on. Blood was splattered everywhere, on the legs of the chair, on the floor, on his shoes, and there were small shards of bone mixed with it, stark white in a sea of red.  

“You’ve still got another knee,” she drawled, trying to ignore the way her stomach twisted and wanted to empty its contents onto the floor. “Might as well tell me.”

“Eight!” he shouted before Ash had barely finished speaking. “There’s eight of us! Fuck!”

_Well if that’s all it took_. . .

“See? It ain’t so hard to cooperate with me,” Ash praised with falsehood, a saccharine sweetness dripping from her words. “I knew you could be a good boy, too.”

“You crazy, fucking bitch!”

“Hmm, yeah, I heard being shot hurt like hell. You know who I heard that from?”

Ash didn’t give him a chance to respond before she was on him, shoving the gun into his panting mouth, the Preacher’s teeth scraping over the hot barrel and muzzle. His tongue would be singed on the hot metal, but Ash was seeing red, tipping back the chair as she choked him on the gun.

“Her name was Waverly, and she was a fucking saint,” she spat out, trying to resist the urge to pull back the hammer and fire. There was still more information they needed. “You fucking shot her in the fucking shoulder. You couldn’t even find your fucking balls to fucking kill her. I sat with her until she turned in our fucking room, and I was the one who had to fucking end her.”

Ash pulled the gun from the Preacher’s mouth, letting the chair wobble back into place as Ash darted off into the corner, shaking. She tucked the gun into her pants, but kept her shirt behind it, for ease of access.

Her hands were shaking, and Ash could barely even breathe as she pushed her shoulder into the unforgiving corner of the outpost, using the pain to bring her back down to her body. She couldn’t freak out yet. She had more information to get from John, but that didn’t mean she was coping with the way her body was trying to shake off the way the vodka made her numb, made her buzzed.

“Wasn’t so hard to give me what I wanted, was it?” Ash ground out, pushing herself off the wall and drawing her knife once more as she stalked towards the Preacher, her footsteps practiced, silent, deadly.

“What the hell happened to you, Cinderella?” he panted, blood dripping in a steady fall from the bullet wound in his knee.

“ _You_ and that _monster_ you work for,” she snarled, stepping up to him. “My name is Ash Bowman, and I’m not his princess. I’m not anyone’s princess.”

“You’ll always belong to Z,” he chuckled, a cough interrupting him. “As long as you have that brand on your tits, you belong to him.”

Ash barely even blinked as she pierced the tip of her knife into the crook of the Preacher’s elbow, blood blooming in a rose of discarded life force as she dug deeper and deeper, careful the entire time to miss the artery.

“Where are they staying?” she demanded, jerking down to create a deep cut, exposing the fat of his arm in yellow bubbles. Ash removed her knife, wiping it on the Preacher’s torn shirt.

“They’ll find you,” he grinned. “You’ll be back with him.”

“And I’ll kill him,” she stated, a blatant promise as Ash looked into his nearly black eyes. “Do you want me to shoot out your other knee?”

John glared at her, and Ash rolled her eyes, pulling out the gun once more. Cocking it, she barely paid attention as she fired, the bullet lodging itself in the center of John’s bare foot, carnage and gore erupting in place of skin.

“I’m getting bored of the disrespect,” Ash drawled over the shouting and cursing coming from John’s thin lips. “I’ve been dreaming about this moment, you know. When I get to finally inflict some of the pain right back at you.”

John continued to hurl insults and obscenities at Ash, but they weren’t unique. She’d heard the words before. From the Preacher, from all the other men she’d been passed to like a bottle of beer. They were words she’d said about herself for years now, words that haunted her dreams, words that crept into the back of her mind whenever the doubt got to be too much.

“Where are they?” she repeated.

He should be wearing down, breaking apart under two gunshots, a knife under his fingernail, a jab and cut in his elbow. She’d slammed her foot into his crotch, shoved a gun down his throat. Plus, there was whatever he’d endured from the men before she’d gotten there. This shouldn’t last much longer.

Ash wasn’t sure she could take much more, anyway. Her skin was starting to crawl, and she wanted to puke, but if she showed weakness, anything other than disdain to the Preacher, he wouldn’t give her shit.

Still, the Preacher didn’t respond, and Ash stepped forward, running the bloody tip of her knife over his exposed stomach, leaving smeared trails of blood along his skin. Red welts were raised from the light pressure she applied, just enough to make him feel what she was doing.

“Does anyone have a pair of pliers?” she called out, knowing only Mendoza should still be in the room.

“Yes, ma’am,” he called right back.  

“Pull off his ear lobe,” Ash ordered, twirling the tip of her knife over the Preacher’s sternum. “Make it hurt.”

Mendoza blanched, freezing in place behind where John was tied up. Ash looked up at him, glaring. She couldn’t blame Mendoza for not wanting to be a part of this, but she needed John to see how much power she had. Even if it was just for his torture.

“Are you going to disobey a direct fucking order?” she snarled.

“No, ma’am! Sorry, ma’am!”

Before Ash could even blink, Mendoza clamped the pliers over John’s ear lobe, pressing as hard as he could along one edge. The Preacher squirmed in his chair, trying to jerk away, to kick Ash off, but he was tied down tight. His screams were haunting, growing hoarse from how often Ash had elicited them.

“Wait!” he cried out. “I’ll tell you!”

Ash nodded at Mendoza, and the Savior pulled away the pliers, revealing a partially severed ear, blood flowing freely down his neck, over his bulky shoulder. A ridged pattern was imprinted in his skin.

“They took over Mount Vernon,” he told them. “By Fort Hunt.”

“Good boy,” she crowed.

With that, they had the information they wanted, and something flipped a switch in her. She screamed, jumping on the prisoner. His chair toppled back as she drove her knife into his chest, bursting through bone and piercing the heart.

Yanking back her knife, Ash repeatedly stabbed into the already-dead man, yelling the entire way. Blood splattered across her face, down her neck. She lost count of many times she pierced his abdomen and chest, breaking through bone, through muscle, into organs.

Hands grabbed her arms, pulling her back, off of the Preacher. Ash continued screaming, kicking at the air to try to free herself as her back connected with someone’s broad chest.

“Let go!” she yelled, trying to worm her knife-hand free to continue stabbing at either the Preacher or whoever was holding her.  

“Ash!”

That was Negan. She knew that voice like the scars on her body, and Ash dropped the knife, letting it clatter on the ground, blood splattering along the concrete as the weapon bounced. She was still fighting his grasp even as his hands tightened on her arms.

“Stop fightin’ me, peaches,” he ordered, his tone rough in her ear. “He’s gone, okay? He’s _dead_ – you aren’t going to get anymore satisfaction from stabbing a corpse.”

Negan pulled her around, his strong arms wrapping around her shaking frame, pulling her flush with him. One hand slithered into her hair, threading through the base of her ponytail as Ash was suffocated on his scent. She didn’t realize she was shaking until she was in his arms, her face against his neck.

“It’s over,” he insisted.

“Never over,” Ash whispered. “Never.”


	18. Infernos and Nightmares

Ash knelt on the floor of Negan’s pristine bathroom, one hand keeping her black hair pulled back and out of the way as the other balanced her on the floor. Her body contracted for the third time, the vomit bursting from her lips as she rocked forward, trying to keep completely in the toilet bowl. She’d clean up. She always did, but she didn’t want to deal with more than she needed to.

Her eyes were streaming tears as her face burned, flushed a bright red. Her shirt had crept up along her spine as her back arched, showing off the compilation of stitches and bruises along her skin. Her entire body crawled with what felt like ants biting over every inch of flesh, and Ash had to resist the urge to rack her nails across her throat in an attempt to open up her veins.

“Peaches? You in there?”

Negan was knocking on the door now, the one leading to his bedroom.

She’d been in there too long, away from Negan too long. The nausea had slammed into her while Negan had left his quarters to bark at someone about something she wasn’t paying attention to, and she’d fled to the bathroom, having time to kick the door shut but not lock it before she hit the ground, her knees bruising on the hard ground. 

“Hey, kid! You _better not_ be trying to hurt yourself in there!”

His hand must have found the door was unlocked because it opened, but Ash’s body was too busy expelling the last of her stomach contents, though it was now mostly bile.

“Whoa, shit!” Negan exclaimed, crossing the small space in a matter of steps as he landed on the ground next to Ash, pulling her hair into his hands, brushing lightly over Ash’s fingers as she fully balanced on the white tile, the cold a grateful juxtaposition compared to her overheated skin.

She continued to dry heave a handful more times as Negan’s thumb ran along her spine between her shoulder blades, his other hand twisted in her sweaty hair. She coughed, sputtering, the acidic bile burning the back of her throat and her tongue as she blinked through the tears clouding her vision.

“You good?” Negan asked as he reached up, flushing the toilet.

Ash shook her head, wiping her eyes on the back of her arm. She fell back on her haunches, slumping into Negan’s chest. She could barely see, and her entire body felt like it was wrapped in an inferno. She was slick with sweat, and it was seeping through her clothes.

“Goddamn, you are burning up,” he commented. “Alright, peaches, let’s get you taken care of.”

“Just – leave me,” she murmured, vaguely aware that Negan was already pulling her up.

She felt like water in a plastic bag, like jelly, and Ash was barely cognizant that Negan was propping her up on the counter, her back connecting with the cool mirror. Around her, it fogged up, a starch reminder of how hot her body was running.

“Hey, look at me,” Negan ordered, his thumb running along Ash’s jaw. “Did you keep drinking after I left?”

“No,” Ash answered truthfully, forcing her eyelids further open to try to look at Negan’s worried face. “I-I just–“

_Just what, though_? That was the question, and Ash didn’t have an answer.

The wrinkles between his brows deepened as he ran a damp washcloth over Ash's mouth before holding it to Ash’s neck, beads of water mixing with beads of sweat as they rolled down into the collar of the tank top she had planned to sleep in. As she leaned against the mirror, barely focused, it didn’t even occur to Ash how much of her scars were on display.

“You’re seriously on fire,” he murmured, and Ash found a cup pressed to her lips.

She made a noise – a _mnn_! – as she pulled her head away, pressing her mouth together. Where had it even come from?

“It’s just water, I promise,” Negan said. “Hey, I’ve been hungover before, so I fuckin’ know that vomit tastes like shit. Just rinse your mouth out, alright?”

Ash let the cup be raised to her mouth once more, but she barely acknowledged what was happening as she parted her lips, letting the water flood the inside of her mouth, diluting the acidic taste of bile. It wasn’t enough to take it away as she sloshed the water back and forth between her cheeks, but, leaning over, Negan supporting her shoulders, most of the taste disappeared as she spit into the sink.

“Better?” he asked, filling up the cup once more with cold water from the tap. “Drink.”

Ash rolled her head against the mirror, turning to look at Negan directly. His legs were between her knees, but Ash couldn’t bother herself to care. That inferno encased every cell in her body, addling her brain as she tried to think beyond the basic bodily functions she needed to survive.

“Tired,” she murmured. “Hot.”

“I know.” Negan got her to drink small sips of the water, lifting it up and pulling it away shortly after. “I’ll get someone to bring up a bag of ice, and if you aren’t feeling better in the morning, Carson’s going to need to make a house call.”

Ash nodded, her hands dead weight in her lap as she stared blearily at Negan.

“C’mon, I’ll take the couch,” he offered. “You deserve a nice-ass bed for all the good you’ve done us tonight.”

Negan looked at her as she stared at him, though his was much more engaged than her absent gaze. Something caught his attention, and his hand caught the hem of her shirt. Ash, to the best of her ability, squirmed, batting at his hands, as the panic spiked in her system.

“No, please, don’t,” she begged, whimpering as she tried weakly to get away. “ _Please_.”

“Ash, Ash,” her name tumbled out of his mouth like some sort of forgotten prayer, like he needed to say it all at once – _or else._ “Hey, no, no, that’s not what I was trying. I just – I saw the tattoo, and you never said you had one, so I just – I’m sorry.”

Negan had never apologized before, and it only made the situation that much worse for her. The tears sprung back, thicker, hot like boiling water on her cheeks as they poured down.

“Please don’t,” Ash repeated.

“I won’t look,” he promised, his large hands resting on her shoulders. “The last thing I want to do is set you off.”

She whimpered again, turning her face to press it against the cool glass. Squeezing her eyes shut did nothing but amplify the screams that had been playing on repeat in her head ever since she tortured the Preacher.

“You’re safe, doll,” Negan murmured, no doubt feeling helpless for the first time in his life as Ash grit her teeth, holding her breath to keep from screaming herself. “I have an idea what might help, and it isn’t me trying to do anything that’ll set off memories.”

“What?” she whispered, her throat painfully tight.

“Can I carry you to my room?”

Ash turned to look over at Negan, blinking away fat tears that rolled over her bony cheeks. After a moment, she nodded, and he pulled her into his arms, Ash wrapping her legs around his middle. His fingers were once again in her thighs, and Ash tightened her grip on Negan’s t-shirt, wondering for a moment if she was going to puke again.

When she didn’t, and when Negan brought her into his room, placing her on the edge of his bed, she rubbed her eyes, watching as he messed with something on the dresser. When music started playing, Ash jerked, confused.

“You like Nirvana?” he called, disappearing into his kitchen.

Negan returned after a few moments without Ash replying. She was still confused she was listening to Nirvana’s first album, let alone _Smells Like Teen Spirit._ He was carrying a glass of water, which he set on the bedside table. Negan looked down at her before pulling Ash into his chest, his hand once more entangling in her hair.

“I grew up on this,” she murmured, the sound partially muffled by his torso. “Metallica, Guns N Roses, Motley Crue – newer bands too, but those were ones my parents love.”

When Ash said _my parents_ , her fists tightened around the fabric of his shirt.

“Fuck, they probably got looted so long ago.”

“Hey, peaches, listen, I can’t promise you a trip home to see the folks for the holidays, but I can promise you answers about what happened to your brother.”

“I’m sorry,” she whispered, dropping her hands away from Negan’s back.

*

_Ash pried apart the shackle around her ankle with the sharpened handle of the fork she’d been using to injure her thighs and hips and ribs for the last six months. Sweat was running down the back of her neck, staining the fabric of the mostly-sheer nightgown she wore. It stuck to her skin in the humid air, the promise of a brutal summer fast encroaching._

_Behind her, the door to her room in the Tower unlocked, and Ash stiffened, looking down at the fork in her hand. She needed to think fast, come up with a reason why she was out of bed after hours when she wasn’t with one of Z’s men or customers._

_Sticking her fork between the mattress and box spring, Ash stood, ready to prattle off a lie, but Rowan was entering, locking the door behind him. Her mouth froze open as she stared at his back, at the muscle that had developed under the shirt he wore. He wasn’t paying attention to her yet, and Ash realized with a start that she must look like hell._

_“Ro?” she hissed, keeping her voice low._

_“Shit, buttercup, you’re gonna give me a damn heart attack,” he smirked, crossing the room on careful footsteps._

_Rowan paused, getting a closer look at what had become of his sister, and he sucked the inside of his cheek in between his teeth, biting down. He sucked down a sharp breath before putting a backpack down on the bed next to them. Without wasting another moment, he swept Ash into his arms, burying his face in her neck as he lifted her off the ground._

_His arms were suffocating, threatening to snap her in half, and he was shaking, but Ash couldn’t fault him. She couldn’t even bring herself to mention how bad his touch **hurt** when he connected with her body. _

_“We don’t have long,” he whispered, setting her back on the floor. Ash was dizzy, and she caught his forearm, trying to stay upright. “I brought you some clothes, some shit to get us started out there. We gotta go now though.”_

_Ash nodded, watching as Rowan pulled out a change of clothes for her to change into as well as some beat-up Converse. Those wouldn’t last long out there. Shit, what was even happening out there?_

_“Get changed,” Rowan ordered, squeezing her hand. “Are there spare sheets?”_

_“Cabinet,” Ash replied, pointing at the proper one. “What are they for?”_

_“Bandages when we get out of this shit hole,” he replied, expression darkening. “It’s a fuckin’ madhouse out there with those fuckin’ geeks.”_

_“I’m in pretty rough shape,” she admitted, pulling on the underwear beneath the nightgown before stripping that over her head, her back to Rowan._

_“And we’ll deal with it,” Rowan answered._

_Behind her, he was preparing something, fiddling with something else, and Ash hissed as tight fabric connected with all the open wounds on her back. Wounds that were probably infected. No one wanted to waste supplies on a whore when there was a backstock._

_Outside the room, footsteps passed by, two sets of voices speaking lowly. Ash looked over her shoulder at Rowan, eyes wide in the pale moonlight as they both went dead silent._

_Rowan put a finger to his lips as Ash zipped up the jeans, kneeling down to start lacing up her new shoes. He crept across the floor, fiddling with the lock on her window._

_Ash had so many questions for him. How’d he get away? How’d he get up here? How’d he get keys? How’d he get supplies?_

_It didn’t matter, though, they could talk about it once they got out of this horrible, horrible place. Just about anywhere was better than here._

_Rowan grunted as he tugged on the deadbolt keeping her locked in. An idea seemed to occur to him, and he crossed over to Ash’s bedside table, rooting around until he found two bobby pins._

_Outside, her doorknob rattled, and they both tensed, looking back at the door._

_“If you get a chance, run,” Rowan whispered, shoving the bobby pins into his pocket as he crept towards the door, picking up a heavy candlestick off a table he passed._

_Everything moved so quickly. The door opened, and Rowan struck a man across the temple, blood splattering across her wall. They began to grapple for a gun, and a shot was fired, shattering the large pane of Ash’s window._

_“Go!” Rowan shouted, trying to force the gun out of his hand._

_“No!” Ash screamed. “I’m not-”_

 

“Ash! Ash!”


	19. Savior of Saviors

Her eyes shot open, homing in on Negan looking down at her, his face too close, and she cried out, trying to pull away, but her hands were locked above her head.

“No, no, no, no, God, no,” she moaned, squeezing her eyes shut.

Just like that, the pressure keeping her hands pinned was gone, and Ash covered her face with her hands. Her heart was beating a mile a minute as she tried to gather herself back together, but it was like there were too many pieces to put in the basket, and the basket had a hole, spilling out everything she tried to put back in place.

Large hands and powerful arms scooped her up, tucking her against his large chest, as the blankets fall to the wayside. Negan shifted, climbing onto the bed without the use of his hands. It jostled Ash who yelped, her short nails pricking his bare skin.

_His bare skin._

Ash shoved away, rolling over her side and jerking to a crouch at the head of the bed.

“Don’t you _fucking_ dare,” she hissed, falling to her knees as the mattress moved, knocking her off balance.

Negan was on his feet in an instant, searching the ground for something. His back was mostly to her, and Ash found herself staring at the muscle and smattering of tattoos on his arms. His shoulders somehow seemed even broader without his signature jacket, and Ash winced, mostly to herself, as she reached around to her side, muscles straining in her shoulder, to feel along her stitches, checking over them.

Nothing felt broken, but, knowing her luck, she’d end up bleeding all over his silk sheets.

“Look, you were whimpering and thrashing around in your sleep,” Negan was saying, picking up a t-shirt from the floor near a pallet of blankets he must have laid out when he realized the couch wasn’t long enough for his tall frame. “I didn’t _think_ , okay? I just wanted to make sure you were alright.”

He pulled it over his head, and, just like that, nearly all of the tattoos disappeared. Ash sucked down a breath that came out all too loud in the silent room, the record having ended – well, she couldn’t be sure when. It was hard to tell time through windows that limited visibility of the sky.

“What were you dreaming about, little phoenix?”

Ash shrugged, still feeling her heart slamming against her sternum. She winced, rubbing the plate of bone with the heel of her hand, the appendage partially under her tank top.

_Fuck_ , _get it together Ash._

“I just – need a minute,” she murmured, her other hand splayed out across the sheets, the smooth fabric finding a home in every crack of her hands, along every cell her skin was made up of.

Sliding off the bed, Ash avoided looking at Negan as she paced back and forth, sucking in and biting the inner corner of her lip as she let the cold concrete floor settle into the soles of her feet. It was comforting, the chill, soothing.  She’d slept in a pair of joggers, fitted sweatpants that ended at the knee, ones that were damp with sweat that hadn’t dried under however many blankets Negan had stuck her under.

She circled around the bed, tucking herself in the space between the massive frame and the wall, and Ash lowered herself to the ground. Almost instantly, it was like ice blasted into her nervous system, and she let out a hiss between clenched teeth as her body fought with the conflicting temperatures: the blazing fire still within her cells and the frigid concrete under her. Her body stiffened, muscles clenching, before it relaxed into the floor. 

Stretching out onto her left side, Ash let out a sigh, and then, realizing that the goosebumps rising along her body weren’t uncomfortable at all, she laid out on her stomach, stretching her arms above her head.

There. That was better. The cold was dimming the adrenaline, and her heartbeat seemed to be settling back to its baseline even as her insides continued to blaze under her skin. It was okay. It would be okay.

_It’s okay_ , a self-soothing voice purred, its gentle caress seeping into every pore. Plush like the blankets Ash had come to treasure. Smooth like Negan’s leather jacket. Soft like his touch running down her shoulder.

“Negan?” she called out, tilting her head to press her cheek to the concrete. The hard floor dug into the bone, but Ash had dealt with worse. So much worse.

His bare feet came into view under the bed first, the black pajama pants he was wearing pooling out over the tops of his feet like the way on octopus spilled over a rock under water. The thought brought up the thought of the ocean, and Ash felt a pang of bitterness as she remembered that salty sea air, the way driftwood added an earthy mix to sun-bleached sand.

Damn, she missed that.

“What are you doing down there?” he chuckled, his hands in his pockets.

“It’s not as hot,” Ash replied, lifting herself up to rest on her forearms. “Concrete’s cold.”

“Fair enough,” Negan shrugged, crouching down at the foot of the bed, one hand on the bedpost. “You want to talk about it now?”

Ash nodded, lowering herself flat again, the muscles in her back smoothing out, returning to their normal plane. She crossed her arms under her head, looking over at Negan.

“The night I escaped,” she started as Negan lowered himself to his ass, crossing his legs, “Rowan managed to get a set of keys, and he had clothes for me. We were – we were both gonna get out. But shit wasn’t – nothin’ fuckin’ worked right in there, y’know? It’s like that place had some kinda curse on it to keep us trapped.”

She shook her head against her arms, rubbing her forehead against the hair on the back of her forearms. A certain kind of friction came from the dry skin against her face. It wasn’t like she was routinely applying lotion anymore or carrying through with any sort of skincare routine.

“One of the guards realized shit was up before we were able to fucking vamoose, and I was just – out of it. Detox is a fucking _bitch_ ,” Ash spat out the last word before a long sigh escaped her lips.

“They used those drugs as some kind of – manipulation device, didn’t they?”

She scratched her throat, nails dragging over her airway. It burned, sent a chill down her spine.

“Wh-when I was – _good_ , I was given the pills that kept me out of it. Like I was still in my body, I knew that. But I wasn’t _there_. Wasn’t fully aware of everything happening,” Ash explained.

Her stomach flipped, like it was doing stunts around her entire digestive system, and she let out a tiny moan, shifting her arms away to press her face into the concrete. She had no idea when it was last cleaned, but it was cool, numbing to the flesh, and that was enough.

“Can I touch you?” Negan asked, his long fingers splayed out over the floor near Ash’s arm. “Just your arm and hand.”

“Yeah,” she murmured, her eyes fluttering shut for a moment.

Negan’s fingertips drifted over Ash’s forearm, tracing the tiniest patterns, like petals of a flower, over her skin. Gooseflesh rose from the contact. A legible form of the written word from their contact.

“Sometimes I miss it,” Ash admitted. “The pills.”

His touch stilled over her wrist, and Ash turned her face up to his. Negan’s expression was clouded with confusion, with thought. Dark thoughts seemed to swirl through his eyes, and Ash licked her dry lips. They seemed to have cracked over the brief period she slept, like the burning logs at the pit of a fire.

“I didn’t have to – to feel when I was under. I didn’t remember the way their – their _hands_ felt on me, o-or how much i-it hurt to j-just have th-them-”

Ash sucked down a deep breath, lungs expanding against her ribs, and Negan’s barely-there touch turned to him spreading his whole hand along Ash’s arm, their skin flush to each other as she spoke.

“You don’t – you’ll never know what it’s like,” she whispered. “T-to never feel clean.”

Negan tried to withdraw his hand, and Ash shot her own out, capturing it, her fingers wrapping around his own.

“Please don’t.”

He nodded, oddly quiet for a man whose reputation included a bullet point that read _loud as shit_ in all caps and underlined. His thumb brushed over Ash’s arm, and Ash relaxed a smidge, letting the tension seep from her shoulders.

They sat there for ages, the world spinning around them, continuing its trek around the sun, and Ash slowly slid her hand off of Negan’s, allowing him to move it as much as he wanted, but he left it in place, his fingers stroking her skin like he was polishing Lucille. Full of care, making sure he got every spot he could access.

The silence around them was bearable, and Ash was almost adjusted to the way the wildfire continued to ravage her body when Negan spoke again.

“Do you remember when I said that touch can still feel good?” he asked, his brow furrowed.

“Yeah,” Ash breathed. “When I showed you the brand behind my ear.”

Negan nodded, the movement slow, methodical. Like he was trying to put the proper words together in his head instead of letting obscenities drip from his tongue.

“I’m not askin’ ya to have sex, sugar,” he stated, and Ash’s body tried to run out of instinct, but his hand continued its ministrations, and her mind kept her in place. “I ain’t gonna do that to ya. If you want, if it doesn’t make you feel – _dirty_ – we can get in bed, and I’ll . . . hold you.”

Ash blinked.

Then, rising up on her forearms and pulling her legs around, she curled around her knees, arms wrapped around her shins as she looked at Negan, eyes shining in the moonlight that managed to break through the stained and grimy windows of his room. She wasn’t crying, though. They were wide in a curious sense.

“The almighty Negan, the savior of Saviors, is asking to _cuddle_?” she inquired, biting the inside of her cheek to try to keep from grinning, but she couldn’t help it. Within moments of speaking, the grin spread across her face, flecks of silver in her gray eyes dancing with mirth. “Shit, and ya cook? What kinda domestic shit is hidin’ under all that leather and crude humor?”

Negan laughed, the sound disrupting any sense of quiet that could possibly remain in his rooms, filling the empty spaces, coating the furniture, and wrapping itself around Ash in what felt like an embrace.

“You tell anyone, peaches, and I’m deducting points,” he warned, pointing a finger at her. A finger that seemed far less imposing without a leather glove and with the knowledge that he gave a shit. “Come here.”

Before Ash could blink, Negan was pulling her into his lap, his hands on her waist, careful of the stitches that wouldn’t come out for another week, minimum, according to Carson.

_If you’d stop trying to fight everything, we’d be able to take them out sooner_ , the doctor had said when he’d put Ash’s back together again.

Ash squeaked as she was pulled into him, his arms enveloping her as Negan tucked his face into the side of her neck, his nose next to her collarbone. She was positive she smelled like his shower products, having borrowed his bathroom when they returned from the interrogation, a mirror of his own scent.

Just the passing thought of the day’s events made her tighten her hold on Negan’s torso, pressing her face against the side of his head, nose burrowing in his messy, un-styled hair.

“Ash,” he murmured, his voice vibrating through her bones, into her soul. “Goddamn, my little phoenix.”

“I miss my brother,” Ash whispered, chills running down her spine as Negan ran his hand over the outside of Ash’s thigh, up and down, up and down, slowly. “I think he was shot, but I just – I don’t know.”

“I got us off track,” he said, leaning back to look at Ash. “What else happened?”

She swallowed, looking away to hide from the intensity of his gaze. He wasn’t even trying to make her squirm, but there was always something in his eyes that made her nervous. Hell, she was already in his arms, in his lap. The small of her back was cushioned by his knee.

“We, uh, got caught,” she shrugged, picking at the collar of his shirt. She rolled the hem between her fingers, over the callous on the side of her middle finger, nails skimming over the stitching. Negan’s chest hair brushed against the back of her knuckles. “I was so fucking out of it, I didn’t even know what was happening.”

“Fuckers,” Negan muttered, mostly to himself as his other arm wrapped tightly around Ash’s small waist. She was still scrawny, struggling to put on weight.

“I-it was like a movie. L-like I was watching it in snippets. They were fighting over the gun, and they shot out th-the window,” Ash continued. “Rowan was yellin’ at me to get out, but I – I just – couldn’t leave him.”

The frown weighed down her lips, and Negan brought his hand away from her leg, cupping her shoulder as he pulled her tight against him. He pressed a small kiss to her temple, his facial hair brushing over her skin.

“Others showed up, a-and there was one of the guards th-that I-I was – scared of.”

“Son of a bitch,” he growled, something wolfish coming back to his words. “Can’t wait to fucking gut those freaks.”

Ash didn’t speak for a moment, focusing on the feeling of Negan’s heartbeat under her palm. It had spiked, and she wondered for the briefest of seconds if he would have already gone on blood pressure medication if the world hadn’t gone to shit and corpses had come back to life.

Running her thumb against his exposed chest, she sighed.  

“I didn’t want them to – to touch me,” Ash said. Her breathing tried to overtake her next words. “I fuckin’ panicked. My goddamn ass just – jumped.”

“You fucking _what_?” Negan demanded, pushing her back to look into her face. “What floor were you on? How the fuck did you not _die_?”

“Third floor,” she answered, hand coming up to rub at her shoulder. Ash winced. “There was an awning that started about midway on the second floor, and it caught me, but I couldn’t get my hands under me, and so I crashed into the metal that held it up.”

“That’s why your shoulder and hip were so fucked up when we found you.” It wasn’t a question. Negan was putting things together. Getting a better timeline of Ash and her injuries.

She nodded.

“I don’t know how, but Rowan threw this backpack down that had some supplies,” she continued, pushing back against the hands that held her back for Negan to look at her, and she pressed her overheated face into Negan’s neck, arms wrapping around his middle. “Th-there was so much _pain_ , an-and I couldn’t focus, b-but th-there was another gunshot.”

“Ah, fuck, peaches,” Negan breathed. “I get it now. How you don’t know if he was shot or not.”

Ash nodded against his neck. There wasn’t anything else to say. It was all on the table, and Negan sighed, running a hand through her hair, the roots damp with sweat from the fever that hadn’t broken yet. This didn’t deter him – after all, Negan had been coated in her blood, geek blood. He’d been in worse than some sweat.

“We’re not heading out to Mount Vernon for five days, but when we do get there – first of all – I’m going to beat the ever-living shit out of someone with Lucille, and then we’re gonna get some information on your brother.”

“Thank you,” she whispered, breath skating across his skin, across the beard that was continuing down, along his neck, where it'd be shaved off in the morning. “I don’t – I don’t deserve this.”

“You deserve the fuckin’ world, peaches.”

Confusion slithered through her, twisting around her stomach, as Ash furrowed her brow, trying to understand exactly what that could even mean. Let alone _why_ Negan would say it. Those thoughts of worthlessness came back, muddling the rest of the thoughts of Rowan, of the way Negan’s hands were soothing, comforting even. It was strange.

“You want to try to sleep some more?” he asked, voice gentle in her ear.

“You’ll stay with me?” Ash replied.

“Well, yes, ma’am. I’m a gentleman, after all,” Negan smirked. “Hell, you’re gonna make my old ass figure out how to stand up with you in my lap? Shit, doll, you’re lucky I like you.”

Ash opened her mouth to retort, but Negan pressed his mouth to hers, stealing whatever words were trying to form on her tongue. A little _mmph_ left the back of Ash’s throat as she realized what was happening, though it was more of a sound of surprise than fear. She was always afraid, after all.

At least to some degree.

Negan pulled Ash’s legs around to his middle, and Ash got the hint, entwining the limbs around his torso. Pulling away from his mouth, Ash huffed a little, trying to ignore the sweat rolling down her spine towards the waistband of her joggers.

“Up you go,” Negan grunted, one hand clinging to the bedpost as he pulled them up, Ash clinging like a monkey as he supported her with one hand.

He groaned with the effort, and Ash could feel the powerful muscles in his thighs as they tightened, flexed. She could feel it in his belly, in his arm that helped pull him to a standing position. Once standing, Negan exhaled, shifting his grip to where he could hold her more effectively.

“How do you want to play this, peaches?” Negan asked, taking the few steps necessary to cross to the side of the bed they were already next to.

“Just wanna stay off my back but be able t-to touch you.”

It was painfully obvious how much it was killing Negan to not say something suggestive as he put Ash on the edge of the bed, the smirk on his lips overtaking his face. Ash shot him a warning look as she moved over, allowing Negan space to crawl into the bed next to her, and he relented, hands splayed in the air.

Negan laid on his back, under all the covers, while Ash only pulled the top sheet over her legs, midway up her back, for the scant amount of weight it would provide her. She was on her side, a few inches between her and Negan, chewing the inside of her cheek before Ash let loose a sigh and lifted herself up enough to press herself flush against Negan’s side.

He was warm, and Ash knew she’d be absolutely coated in sweat if the fever didn’t break during the night. It didn’t take long for Negan to wrap an arm around her waist, and his other hand came up, pushing Ash’s hair out of her face.

“You’re not granite,” she mumbled, already feeling the lull of sleep.

“What?” he chuckled, chest rising and falling with laughter. “Goddamn, I need to start making sure you take better care of yourself.”

“Two days after _Friday the 13 th_ – which you interrupted, by the way,” Ash yawned, pressing her face into the spot on Negan’s torso where his shoulder morphed into his pectoral muscle, “you decided to bother me in my room while I was in the middle of a really good book. I thought you were gonna – anyway, I was planning to kick you in the gut when I wondered briefly if you were made of granite.”

“Nah, darlin’, wouldn’t say I’m made of granite, but I do suppose I owe you a showing of _Friday the 13 th_.”

“And _Poltergeist,_ ” she murmured, eyes fluttering shut. “I have a list.”

“Oh, I bet you do, Ash, I bet you do.”


	20. Author's Note

Hi, guys. I feel really bad about having to post this "update", but things have been really bad the last few weeks. Family drama, work and my second work. Severe depressive episode. 

I'm not abandoning Ash and Negan's story. I, am, however, working very, very slowly while I'm trying to put my life back together. 

Again, I'm really sorry. I'm also really sorry this is vague, and my reasons probably don't seem good enough. I'm trying to get a new chapter out, but I don't want to give anyone false hope. 

I hope you're all doing well and will stick around for when I get back to consistent updates, and, in time, finish this sucker.

-Casper


	21. Bleed

Ash woke with a groan, squinting into the room that now seemed too bright compared to the middle of the night when she was laying on concrete. Her entire body felt like it had been slammed by one of the transport trucks the Saviors used, and just moving a finger to feel around the soaked mattress was excruciating.

Yeah, she was sick alright.

Slowly, Ash managed to push herself to a seated position, her back peeling from the sweat-soaked sheets she had slept on. Rolling her head to the side, muscles straining in her neck, Ash found an empty room, and another groan escaped her parched lips as she fell back on her elbows.

“Fuck,” she hissed.

It was too early to the start of her day to already be this exhausted.

Scrounging up the necessary energy to get out of Negan’s bed – a reminder filled with a variety of emotions – Ash’s feet touched down on smooth concrete and nearly slid out from under her, her own skin slick, unable to grip properly on the surface at first touch. Heartrate jerked up to a new, upbeat tempo, Ash found herself clutching the bedside table, trying to keep herself upright.

“Hey, uh, Negan?” she called out, hoping he was nearby. Her voice came out slow, deeper than it usually did. Like being stuck underwater.

No one answered. No one made a sound, and Ash frowned.

_Dammit¸_ she cursed, trying to get her brain to get into gear, to formulate how every day was supposed to start.

Glancing around, Ash’s eyes landed on the dresser, and her gaze lingered for a moment before she picked at the tank top she still had on, fingers finding something hot and sticky and soaked.

_Clothes._

Clothes were a good start to every day, right? Hers were – somewhere. Trying to conjure up the location of her things seemed too difficult, like getting stuck in a calculus class without even having taken algebra. But Negan had clothes. After all, laundry still existed, and it’s not like he even did his own. One of the women downstairs could wash out her sweat.

Probably.

Pulling open the first drawer, Ash found Negan had dedicated the entire section to sweatpants, and she rolled her eyes – a movement that spiked pain in her head – at the excess. Closing that, she continued to poke around, ignoring socks, boxer briefs (she slammed that drawer shut right quick), jeans, odds and ends he was storing, until she came across his t-shirts, and Ash pulled out a navy blue one from the top of the pile.

Without thinking through her actions, without checking her surroundings, Ash slid the joggers off her legs, and the cold air slammed into her like a jet. She could almost swear she could hear steam sizzling off the sides of her thighs as she kicked the pants into a corner.

An action Ash quickly regretted.

Her balance wasn’t what it normally was, and her foot leapt out from under her, sending Ash landing on her ass, pain shooting through her back and hips. The yelp that escaped as she fell through the empty air quickly turned to a long groan, Ash turning on her left side, eyes scrunched up, as she sucked down a deep breath, working to distract herself from the pain.

“Ash.”

Rolling back over, she looked up, vision blurry, but she could see black in the shape of a jacket, and Ash stuck a hand out for a lift.

“Negan,” was all she said.

The hand that grabbed hers wasn’t Negan’s. It was too thin, too skeletal, and the stench of cigarettes was too strong to be Negan. Even as Ash was being pulled through the air, she struggled against the grip on her hand, but they were stronger than her, and she could shake the sweat rolling into her eyes.

“Let go!” she insisted, squirming, but even at ten-percent of her energy reserves, her strength was depleted to something closer to five-percent.

“Z sends his regards,” a husky voice rasped in her ear, and she froze, letting the man pull her into his body, her stomach sinking. “Soon, Cinderella, and you’ll be right back in your Tower.”

“Fuck you,” she hissed, diving into that small reserve of strength. “I’m going to kill you. And him.”

“We’ll see about that, Cinders,” he chuckled, and something warm and wet slid across their neck. “Huh, so that’s what the big deal is. Woulda thought the princess would taste better.”

With that, he spun her around, hands gripping her shoulders, and Ash was tumbling through the air. Tucking her arms up, Ash let them catch her on the concrete, a sharper dose of pain splitting down her forearms and into her wrists and elbows. She groaned, already pushing herself up onto her hands and knees, but a swift kick to her ribs sent Ash flying to the side, skidding across the smooth concrete.

At first, she couldn’t make a sound, face screwed up in pain, her breathing impossible. A second kick was delivered to her vulnerable stomach, and Ash found the air to make her body work again, a short scream piercing the cold air.

Ash expected a third kick as she curled in on herself, arms wrapped protectively over the side of her head, knees pulled to her chest. Her breathing was ragged, and a few too many pain-induced memories were being broadcast on the internal theater of her mind.

Not to mention, Z really did have someone at the Sanctuary, and even having tortured and executed the Preacher hadn’t yielded an answer about a mole, about a plant, about a double agent. They were screwed. Didn’t matter how many people Negan threatened, how many hours were added and how many points reduced, they were screwed.

They all were.

The door from the bathroom flung open, and Ash flinched, her protective ball tightening as she gritted their teeth, waiting for the worst.

“What the fuck?” a deep voice shouted as a second, quieter voice said, “holy shit.”

Wait, she knew those voices, even in this panicked, hazy state, and Ash rubbed at her eyes before lifting her head, to find the legs of two men – well, probably men based on the size of their shoes – standing stock still at the doorway.

“Shit!” she exclaimed, recognition flooding their system as they processed Negan’s boots were attached to one pair of legs.

Ash scrambled to her feet, but it didn’t last, and she found herself hitting the concrete on her knees, stomach knotting in on itself. If she wasn’t careful, Negan’s floors were going to get a new paint job: vomit edition. A small moan left her lips as she doubled over, one arm wrapped around her middle, the other resting on the floor. Her side throbbed from where she'd been kicked. 

“Whoa, fuck, Ash,” Negan cried, becoming unglued from the spot he stood, and he was across the room in a hurry, crouching in front of Ash, reaching out to her.

“Don’t touch me!” she shouted, jerking back hard enough to land partially on her back, the stitches pressing into her back, and Ash’s stomach contracted once more, a squeak escaping as she let herself collapse fully on the floor once more. “Not you too.”

“What the hell happened?” Simon – because of course Simon had to watch this fallout – asked, staying in place. Like he realized that coming closer while Ash had nothing more than a tank top and underwear might send her to a deeply broken place.

“There’s a-a rat,” Ash tried to explain, glancing up at the oddly quiet Negan.

He looked broken. Seeing the extent of the scars on her legs were for the first time. How deep some of them were, how ragged and red some of them were. How evident it was that even the slashes on her forearm hadn’t been the worst of the wounds.

She couldn’t keep eye contact.

“Who?” Negan demanded, voice raw.

“I don’t-”

“God-fucking-dammit, Ash!” he bellowed, launching himself onto his feet. “Why couldn’t you get this fucking right? It’s so fucking easy to just _look_ at someone in the fuckin’ face!”

Ash stared up at the Savior of all Saviors, heart slamming into her chest, body searing with heat and illness, and her lower lip quivered as she lowered her head.

He was right, though, she couldn’t get this right. She couldn’t get anything right. She was too damaged, too broken, too _sick_ to even look someone in the face or recognize a voice. The tiniest things sent her reeling, soul plummeting. She wasn’t capable of invading the tower, of getting her brother back.

She should just do them all a favor and find a way to disappear.

“Boss,” Simon said slowly, reminding Ash he still existed in the space, and she choked back a sob.

“Fuck off, Simon,” Negan spat.

_And you really thought a man could be nice to you_ , that sneering voice inside her head jeered. _It’s always worse once they’re nice to you. Remember when Z got you and Waverly those lilies?_

“Go away!” Ash moaned, hands clamping over her ears, nails pricking the side of her scalp, the skin and hair damp from the sweat that continued to plague her.

Her head was throbbing, and blurring tears hit her bare thighs, tiny strikes against the scarred tissue, as her heart thudded against her ribcage.

_You really tried to trick yourself into thinking someone like Negan was going to be so nice to you because – what? Because he_ loves _you?_ the same voice continued, almost like claws shredding through a sheer curtain. _Grow the fuck up, Ash._

“Go away!” she screamed, voice cracking, throat raw as she hunkered down further on herself, those slowly-healing stitches along her back tugging and her forehead smacking into her knees as she started to rock violently.

To her left, a door slammed, and Ash flinched, hands falling just enough from her ears as she looked up, tiny sobs spilling from fever-split lips, as Ash looked around the room.

She was the only source of sound, the only soul in Negan’s bedroom, and Ash let the choked cries double down to wails, her stomach clenching around nothing as she doubled back over. Her skin crawled from where that stranger had licked her, where his grimy, greedy hands had held her in place, and Ash dug her nails into the flesh of her calf, one of the last areas on her body she didn’t have any scars.

Even when blood welled up around her nail bed, it wasn’t enough, and Ash wailed, chest clenching around something that felt suspiciously like an aching, breaking heart.

_Why would you even give someone so much power over you again?_

“Shut up!” she screeched, hand ripping away from her leg, opening the wounds wider than they would be otherwise, and Ash rubbed her hand over her face, blood and tears smearing across her cheek and forehead, barely missing her eye.

Hot blood and hot tears and hot flesh all mixed together.

Briefly Ash was reminded of geeks, of their desperate, clawing hands, and she looked down at her own, cries lost in her throat as she choked and sputtered.

_Blood._

That had to be the answer, right?

Everything in the world was give and take, and if Ash lost some of her blood, she could gain a little peace. That was it.

_That was it._

Slowly, still gasping out cries and sobs, Ash managed to crawl to her feet, bleary eyes focused on one object in the room: a mirror.

A small mirror sat on a bookshelf, propped against the wall, and Ash knew what she had to do.

She had to bleed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm genuinely embarrassed by how long it took me to get anything up, but I just want to say thank you to anyone who left a comment about taking care of myself. I needed those. I hope this chapter will start to even make up for my absence. I don't have the rest of the chapters written, but I do know how the rest of it plays out. There's going to be plenty of angst.


	22. Cabinets and Toys

For the second time that day, Ash jerked awake, and, momentarily, she completely forgot where she was. Forgot why the area she was in was black as tar, darker than a starless, moonless sky. Her hands darted out as she sucked down a breath, and her fingertips came in contact with smooth wood. It was cool under her skin, and Ash was able to take a steadying breath.

She was okay. Other than the dried blood coating her thighs and arms. But she was okay.

Slowly, Ash leaned her head back, touching it to the cool wood. A shiver ran through her body, and she curled in towards herself, trying to suppress how painful the involuntary movement was over her tired muscles and weary bones. As she moved, coagulated blood flaked off her skin.

Ash let out a low groan, flexing her stiff fingers, and a cut she didn’t remember making across the palm of her right hand burst back open, cracking and leaking fresh blood onto her tank top.

_Look at that mess, Cindy,_ a voice in her head taunted, and Salem squeezed her eyes hard enough for a spiderweb of light to shatter across her vision. _Negan’s going to be so mad that you made such a mess._

“Go ‘way,” they slurred, leaning back against the smooth wall, neck contorting to allow the angle their head was at.

Out, beyond the dark space she was hidden in, she could hear something crash, like a door slamming open and bouncing off drywall. Her heart was picking up momentum, like a train headed straight for a cliff in an old western flick. Sweat was coating every inch of her skin, but that was a concern for another time as Ash pondered if there was an escape from whatever the hell she’d been shoved in.

No, wait, that wasn’t right.

Ash had put herself in this dark space, clutching a shard of glass like her only lifeline as the world ended. She’d needed privacy to tear at her flesh, to recreate wounds that never should have existed in the first place, but she’d made the _hurt_ go away, and that was more important than what her skin looked like.

“Fucking hell, how did I lose a girl who can barely stand she’s so sick?”

She knew that growl, that surly disposition, but it only made Ash shrink further in on herself, knees pulled up under her chin as she slid her fingers around her wonderfully dark hole, searching out hinges to the cabinet door. She just needed to know which way the door would open. Ash wasn’t particularly key on exiting her hiding hole, but she needed to be sure she wasn’t going to –

_Click._

Well, that.

That was what Ash had been avoiding.

Her hand had pressed open the door just a breadth of a hair, but it was enough that when she pulled her fingertips away to continue searching, it clicked shut, the wood bouncing off itself.

Footsteps were thudding towards her, and the beating of Ash’s own heart was so painful she was sure this would be her actual cause of death – minus the final end of her brain activity.

_You’re such a stupid waste of resources_ , the evil voice in her head drawled, always showing up when she needed it least. _If you’d just gone a little bit deeper, maybe you could’ve –_

Ash pressed her thumb into the valley of the slash across her palm, silencing the voice. She needed to try to focus. Even if her body felt like it’d been dipped in molten lead and her heart was still beating at light speed. Even if she could barely function beyond a few simple tasks. She could do this. She had to do this.

The cabinet door opened, and Ash whimpered, yanking her hand away from her palm to block her face. In doing so, Ash could feel the scabs get ripped open, fresh blood dancing to the surface of their ruined skin. It bubbled around the edges of the wound before overflowing the basin and spilling over Ash’s palm.

“Fuck, fuck, Ash, look at me,” Negan pleaded, his tone threatening to catapult towards desperate in a miserable heartbeat. “Ash, baby, look at me, please.”

“Don’t call me that!” Ash gasped, unable to force out an order that sounded like anything more than a little girl pretending to hold an ounce of authority.

“Okay, peaches, just – fuck, what are you doing here? What happened?”

“You left!”

There it was. The anger. The hurt. The pain at being abandoned and ridiculed for something she couldn’t control. Blood was falling between their fingers, and every movement Ash made spawned another surge of pain through her legs, down her arm. But none of it compared to the emotional pain.

And there was a new urge. To find a new piece of glass. To take it right to her throat and bleed out within minutes.

But when Negan remained silent, Ash lowered her arm away from her face, and she got a good look at the leader whose space she’d practically been locked in. He was on his knees, resting on his haunches as he fiddled with his long fingers in his lap. Negan’s brow was furrowed, the frown pulling his lips harshly down. Even the wrinkles around his eyes seemed deeper like this.

“You left,” Ash whispered, repeating herself.

“I shouldn’t have gotten mad. Sure as shit shouldn’t have yelled at you – and definitely not for somethin’ like not being able to look at someone.”

“You’re a dick.”

Negan chuckled, looking up at her then. The smile on his face seemed forlorn, and the light didn’t reach his eyes. A pang shot through Ash’s chest as it tightened, but she didn’t have a name for this pain.

“I am,” he agreed, searching her face. “What else?”

Ash stayed quiet, looking down at the gash on her bloody hand. It was caked around the edges, gathered in the lines of her palm, and had painted the skin a stark red. Blood was still leaking from a particularly deep gash on her wrist, running over her arm and down to the crook of her elbow. There wasn’t a reason to fuel Negan’s anger, but she was still mad, and looking at the wounds only solidified that.

“You’re selfish and greedy, and you’re fucking arrogant. You demand everyone falls into line, but I haven’t seen you bend for anyone other than – other than me. You don’t even _know_ the others at the Tower – the girls, my brother, the families who are just as much trapped as I was – and you want to kill them. It’s bloodlust, and you – you want to invade just because they hurt your new toy.”

Negan nodded, his brows pulled low and furrowed over his eyes that seemed so much darker than usual. He reached forward into the cabinet, his hands playing across the lip as he rocked forward. Pulling her feet away, Ash point them towards each other, the tendons in her knees complaining. She’d truly put herself in a bad spot, one without a single exit other than tearing straight through Negan, and that would be impossible.

“You’re not a toy,” he said, looking up to meet her eyes, though he got caught on the blood around her legs and on the back of her arm. Ash tucked her face down, only watching the progression of the bleeding line in her arm. That was easier. “If you were a toy, I wouldn’t have done a fraction of this. Wouldn’t be getting everyone ready for all-out war. Wouldn’t even have let you stay in my bed. Yeah, you can say you aren’t Helen of Troy, but, fuck it, Ash, no one’s made me feel this way since my wife died when all this shit started.”

A shaky breath got sucked between her teeth, a spike in her heartbeat causing the blood to flow quicker. Nope, this wasn’t happening. She wasn’t being compared to a dead wife. Nope. It was just the fever. She was talking to herself. That made _way_ more sense than whatever the hell this was.

Fever-induced hallucinations were way more logical.

Although why her hallucinations were going in this direction, she wasn’t sure.

“Please – Ash, come out. We need to make sure those don’t get infected,” Negan deflected, always incapable of allowing _emotions_ to exist in a silent space.

She looked up, unaware that her wounds were that obvious, but it made sense. She’d done more damage in one sitting than her own hands had caused since getting hold of the fork she’d started down this road with.

“I saw the broken mirror,” he explained. “Should I get the doc back?”

Ash shrugged. Some of them probably needed stitched, but it was also hard to tell when so much blood was covering the surface of her body.

“Why did you yell at me?” she asked quietly, and a pained look flitted across Negan’s face.

He touched her then, warm fingers grazing her fiery leg. Negan’s thumb traced the little valley where the thickened muscle of her calf met her shin, the last few months of near-constant running having developed it into something similar to steel. Ash let the leg he touched relax, comforted slightly by the contact, despite the fact that she’d broken down because of his actions.

“The idea of someone in Sanctuary, in contact with those fucking sick bastards, and able to get to you-”

Negan took a deep breath, his hand continuing to work the muscle his hand was wrapped around. Flakes of dried blood fluttered to the wood she was sat on. Looking back down at the slit across her palm, Ash sucked her lower lip between her teeth, chewing at the fleshy piece.

“I’m sorry, peaches,” Negan sighed, and Ash’s heart twisted and scrunched in on itself. She still had a hard time processing that phrase from him. “You really deserve someone better than my old ass.”

Ash shook her head.

“You’re full of shit,” she said, trying to laugh, but it only made her voice crack. “Help me out.”

“Yes, ma’am,” he smirked, scooting back from the cabinet to give Ash space to crawl out.

She put her hands on the walls of the cabinet, but quickly pulled her right hand away as she hissed, the wound stinging with the contact and the stretch of her hand. Negan gave her a quizzical look, but he didn’t ask questions. They both knew he was going to get an eyeful in just a few minutes.

Slowly, she stretched her legs out, the muscles cramping around every joint as she eased them out of the cabinet. Her knees were the angriest at the change of position, creaking and throbbing with every movement, no matter how small.

“You got it?” Negan asked as Ash shifted, her left hand placed down next to her thigh to help scoot out.

Ash glanced over at him briefly before crawling out, wishing she at least had shorts on, but they would’ve just been in the way. Just gotten stained and ruined.

Once out, she didn’t stand right away, the lip of the cabinet pressing into her lower back when she tried to lean against it, causing her to wince as she flinched away. How long had she been curled up with her knees to her chest anyway?

“Okay,” Ash said, holding her hand up and looking up at Negan.

He got to his feet first, something he did easily, as he looked down at Ash from his imposing height. From the ground, he seemed excessively tall, like some sort of tree that was over an eternity old, that had stood in the same place since the Earth was born.

Panic lit his eyes as he took in the damage Ash had done. As he looked at her without the compromising shadow from inside the cabinet, Ash knew she was screwed. Privacy was about to become a thing of the past, and she’d be lucky to have easy access to the kitchen anymore.

“What did you do?” he whispered, grasping Ash’s forearm.

He pulled up, and Ash went sailing through empty air until her feet were planted firmly under her, and Negan wrapped his spare arm around her middle, pulling her flush with him. A sigh escaped his lips as he nuzzled his face into the messy hair, and even though Negan’s body temperature was settled somewhere around average, he felt like a desert oasis pressed against Ash, cool and soothing.

Almost as if she hadn’t been grabbed in his bedroom, gotten in a fight, and then sliced open her body.

“I think we should call Carson,” he murmured against their hair.

“I-it just looks bad when it’s messy,” she deflected, though even in her hazy state, Ash knew the doctor was going to be called.

“We’ll see,” Negan said before shifting his touch on her, picking her up.

Ash wrapped her legs around his hips, tucking her face into his neck. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to like this simple touch. Maybe she wasn’t supposed to even be alive anymore. But when Negan started walking towards the bathroom, little phrases slipping from his tongue – _little phoenix; sweet peach; I’m sorry_ – Ash found herself oddly content.

Although that could be the fever talking.

The words _I’m sorry_ still felt wrong coming from Negan, but Ash didn’t say anything. She wasn’t about to tarnish the moment or prompt Negan to start yelling again or irritate him in some way. His voice, rumbling deep in his chest, as he whispered _I’m sorry, my little phoenix_ left Ash with the sense that maybe he really did mean what he said regarding his emotions.

Negan placed her down on the counter next to the sink, and he picked up a towel, running it under the water. Taking a step back, Negan surveyed what he had to work with, and Ash squirmed on the countered, looking over at the tile wall next to her. Anything to not have to look at him.

“I have to clean your thighs,” he said softly. “Ya gotta tell me if I make you uncomfortable, got it?”

Ash gave a noncommittal nod, every nerve on her body keeping track of Negan’s movements as he started cleaning her legs, starting near her knee and working up.

The silence that came was uneasy, though Ash couldn’t be bothered to care, in that moment, about Negan’s discomfort or disgust or whatever he could possibly be feeling. The bathroom was the coldest of his rooms, and the glass was cool against her overheated body. The chill licked at her skin, trying to dissuade the blazing heat eating her alive.

Watching Negan take care of her was always strange to Ash, even if he continued to do it on multiple occasions. But that was their own shit, and she could recognize that.

“Shit, these went deep,” Negan cursed. “I know you don’t want him, but Carson needs to see these.”

“Fuck,” Ash said quietly. “You’ll stay, though, right?”

“I’ll stay, peaches,” Negan replied, looking up from a cut in her thigh that dove into the fat. “I’ll do whatever you want.”


End file.
